(ECNS) - China’s leading mobile payment app Alipay, an affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba, announced on Thursday it will impose a 0.1 percent fee on credit card payments starting March 26.
Users who max out on the limit of 2,000 yuan per month will have to pay the fee on the excess amount. Alipay said the move was in response to a “rapid increase of comprehensive operation costs.”
WeChat, China’s largest social platform, introduced a similar move half a year ago, slapping fees on users who pay their credit card bills via the WeChat Wallet function.
Insiders said Alipay’s move is thought to have a limited impact because there are other free services available such as paying off credit cards directly through online banking.
In recent years, a noticeable development in China’s Internet sector saw an increasing number of online services that have started charging fees, but users seem to be ready to pay out of their own pockets.
Chinese streaming platform iQiyi Inc disclosed in its third-quarter earnings report that its number of members reached 80.7 million, an increase of 89 percent year-on-year, with paying members accounting for 41 percent.
