Alibaba hopes to continue cooperating with major banks, says executive

An Alibaba Group executive said over the weekend that the -company hopes to continue cooperation with commercial banks, after Industrial Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) started to restrict trade with the e-commerce giant's online payment arm last week.

China's central government has been cracking down on a -nascent yet highly popular online finance industry, which is led by Alibaba's payment arm of Alipay and its online fund product Yu'ebao, since early this year.

The Big Four banks recently followed the authorities' lead by lowering the upper limit of Alipay's quick transfer service, partly in order to protect their own online payment services and regain market share for their fund business that has been lost to the ultra-popular Yu'ebao, analysts said.

Peng Lei, CEO of the Alibaba Small and Micro Financial Service Group, said the company wants to support the e-commerce and online finance industry with the help of banks, China Central Television (CCTV) reported Friday.

"Yu'ebao never wanted to overturn or beat anybody," she said. "We want to create a win-win situation."

Contrary to ICBC's previous attitude toward Alibaba, the bank's president, Yi Huiman, was quoted by CCTV as saying on Thursday that the online finance industry is highly beneficial since it has increased the banks' service efficiency and customer satisfaction.

"ICBC is the biggest beneficiary of the online finance industry," Yi said. "Some 80.2 percent of banking services are now done online instead of offline."

The bank's vice president, Zhang Hongli, also emphasized that "ICBC's willingness to work with Alipay has never changed."