Displaying items by tag: third party payments

The total number of payments licenses currently stands at 269. Most of the licensed companies are private and do not disclose their financials, however, some publicly listed corporations have invested in the payment industry and a peek into their most recent annual reports allows us to know a bit more about the profitability of the payments industry in China. On one end of the spectrum, Alipay dominates the market and is very profitable. On the other, a prepaid-card company almost went bankrupt in January, which begs the question of how the industry is doing as a whole.

99Bill, a Chinese payments company, was just acquired by Baidu for RMB 2 billion. While there was no official confirmation from Baidu yet, the rumors started appearing on November 18. As the deal comes through, it will be yet another instance of a tech company moving into online finance. Alibaba through Alipay and Tencent through Tenpay already have payments licenses and operate successfully in the industry. Only Baidu was the last company of the three technology titans without a considerable traction in online finance. Its Baidu Wallet is still in promotion phase and is yet to gain a user base comparable to that of Alipay or Tenpay wallets.

Mr. Li Xiaofeng, head of PBoC Financial IC Card Panel, believes that Chinese payment providers will not play a major role in payments in China's financial industry. “From the scale and channel perspective, Central Bank and commercial banks remain the main payment providers.”