"Market competition is a good thing", according to Eric Jing, president of Chinese firm Ant Financial Services Group, who also said he thought "merchant fees in the US payments market are too high." Mr Jing's company Alipay, Ant Financial's online payments unit, does not use state-backed company Unionpay, which has a monopoly on bank cards in the country, when processing online transactions. The new rules will be implemented by July 1, and could affect more than 100 million people across China.
"Market competition is a good thing", according to Eric Jing, president of Chinese firm Ant Financial Services Group, who also said he thought "merchant fees in the US payments market are too high." Mr Jing's company Alipay, Ant Financial's online payments unit, does not use state-backed company Unionpay, which has a monopoly on bank cards in the country, when processing online transactions. Alipay has a 68% share of China's mobile payments market, and revenues last year were an estimated CNY139bn ($21bn).