Sina Weibo to issue credit card

Sina Weibo plans to issue a credit card with China Merchants Bank later this month, a company spokesman said Thursday, a move for the country's largest microblogging service provider to cash in on its active users.

The credit card will be available to DaRen users in two weeks, Mao Taotao, a spokesman for Sina Weibo, told the Global Times, without specifying details.

Currently Sina Weibo has more than 4 million DaRen users, a group of real name verified users. Unlike the more well-known verified users, DaRen users are mostly ordinary people with specific interests in things like travel, films or music.

DaRen users' Weibo address will be printed on the card. They can receive hyper-targeted offers and will participate in a reward system that gives extra points for being active on Weibo, according to a report published Wednesday on tech website Tech Rice.

Sina has speeded up commercializing its Weibo platform this year by charging membership fees for value-added services and offering special services to business accounts.

Advertising income from Weibo services amounted to $10.31 million in the second quarter of 2012, while total investment into the service came at $38 million during the period. Weibo will have more monetization features in the second half, Sina Corp's CEO Charles Chao said on an earnings conference call Thursday.

Analysts are not so optimistic about the credit card's popularity, as other social networking sites such as Renren, Tencent and Kaixin have also partnered with domestic banks and issued credit cards, which have drawn lukewarm responses from their users.

"Issuing the credit card could help Sina Weibo provide financial services to users and increase their stickiness, but the move could not generate revenue to Sina directly," Dong Xu, an analyst at Analysys International, told the Global Times.

The popularity of Sina Weibo's credit card will depend on how much card holders can really gain from using the card, said Dong Zheng, a Beijing-based credit card expert.

"Credit cards co-issued by retailers and airline operators are usually popular, as they could provide users considerable benefits such as discounts, gifts and air tickets," he said.

Some Weibo users also expressed their concerns on the Internet such as how to protect personal information security.

"If my card is stolen, the thief can get access to my Weibo page and know some personal informational about me. It's very scary," said a DaRen user surnamed Pan in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province.