China Plans Online Payment Rules That May Hit Ant, Tencent

hackingbear writes: People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, said on Wednesday that any non-bank payment company with half of the market in online transactions or two entities with a combined two-thirds share could be subject to antitrust probes, potentially dealing another blow to financial technology giant Ant Group Co. and its biggest rival Tencent Holdings Ltd. Ant's Alipay accounts of 55.6% of the Chinese online payment market, while Tencent's WeChat accounts for 38.8%, according to iResearch data.

"If a monopoly is confirmed, the central bank can suggest the cabinet impose restrictive measures including breaking up the entity by its business type," reports Yahoo Finance. "Firms already with payment licenses would have a one-year grace period to comply with the new rules, the PBOC said." Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba and Ant Groups, emerged in public as he spoke to 100 rural teachers through a video call on Wednesday for the first time since China began clamping down on his businesses, ending several months of speculation over his whereabouts. Ma last appeared publicly at a conference where he castigated China's (and that of the world's) financial regulatory systems in front of a room of high-ranked officials. His controversial remark, according to reports, prompted the Chinese regulator to abruptly halt Ant's initial public offering, which would have been the biggest public share sale of all time.

Divide and conquer

[Tablizer]

After the gov't saw how Alibaba got too powerful for their britches, thumbing their nose at the gov't, the gov't seem more willing to enforce anti-trust now.

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[ShanghaiBill]

Too bad America doesn't do the same with the Mastercard/Visa duopoly.

They have 90% of the market and collude to block competitors.

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[jbengt]

Too bad America doesn't do the same with the Mastercard/Visa duopoly.

Well, Discover did win a multi-billion dollar settlement against Mastercard and Visa for refusing to do business with them and subsequently partnered with Mastercard for some financial products.

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[Anonymous Coward]

helo can yu tech me how to spam the slashdo

Just comply because someone else will

[thesjaakspoiler]

and make a new-new version knock-off of you product for the Chinese market.
Jian Yaaaang!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

gato lengua

[rmdingler]

With a concerned eye towards South Korea, China's government cannot risk a Samsung at home.

If you're an authoritarian regime keeping your foot on the public's neck, rather successfully, you'd be fool to allow a single corporate entity too much power.

Much akin to the inherent benefit to her enemies when America squabbles amongst herself, the Chinese ruling party has to quash internal threats regularly... it's an ingredient in their recipe for government. The West needs to remember its form of government allows these things to be sorted out, and inevitable differences, to be lived with.

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[ddtmm]

Funny how so many people are all about letting the free market "sort itself out" and tout how democracy and the free world is where it's at, but we all have a problem with monopolies when we're shopping ISPs, cellular plans, or cable TV or any other situation where enormously large companies limit our options or our curb innovation. The West needs to remember a lot more than just its form of government that allows these things to be sorted out, which never ever seem to get sorted out.

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[rmdingler]

I assume you mean funny strange, not funny haha. Monopolies, you keep using that word...

I live in Bugtussle, virtually, and I have options in ISP, cell, and internet providers. How you livin?

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[nagora]

Funny how so many people are all about letting the free market "sort itself out" and tout how democracy and the free world is where it's at, but we all have a problem with monopolies when we're shopping ISPs, cellular plans, or cable TV or any other situation where enormously large companies limit our options or our curb innovation

That's because the Free Market is founded on the assumption that everyone is nice. Adam Smith didn't get out much.

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[sabbede]

In China, the CCP has a monopoly on everything. There are no independent companies, the CCP is the state and every company is directly controlled by the CCP. Assuming the transitive property applies, every Chinese corporation is an extension of the Chinese government.

And apparently Jack Ma is not as powerful/influential a member of the CCP as those he openly criticized.

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[AmiMoJo]

Um, wouldn't it be much easier for them if it was a single corporate entity, given that you also claim all Chinese corporations are merely extensions of the government?

Could it be that they have noticed the problems that monopolies cause and decided to avoid them in their version of capitalism?

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[sabbede]

There's a little more to it. It doesn't normally matter in China if a corporation has "too much power", because they are not functionally separate from the government. Sure, they may look like independent companies at first glance, but since the Party always has a seat on the board, and some or all of the executives are Party members, any major Chinese corporation is a de facto extension of the state. If one is broken up for being too big, it's most likely either a sham for Western eyes or the result of

Reining in Challenge to State Financial Monopoly

[Koreantoast]

Close, but not quite. The core of the Chinese financial system is controlled by a handful of state-owned banks - not just a central bank like the US Federal Reserve or the European Central Bank, but large, slow moving state-owned commercial banks (think if the government owned Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, etc.). Ant and Tencent caught people off guard, coming to power through online payments and becoming a direct challenge to the state-owned system, and the final straw was when Jack Ma directly challenge

Communist

[cygnusvis]

Any notion of communism in china that I had is now gone. Now its just "authoritarian"

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[jbengt]

When has communism been anything other than authoritarian?

When it was just a socio-economic theory of Marx and Engels.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I gotta be honest...

[ddtmm]

I can't see anything wrong with this. North America would do well to impose the same measures. I've seen enough odd what monopolies do and welcome something like this in North America. As some point is simply becomes greed.Owning more than 50% of any market is just not good for anyone except the owner(s).

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[fustakrakich]

Gotta agree. We need to do the same for the telcos and ISPs

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[misnohmer]

I think some large companies might like it. Imagine Apple suddenly telling users they are only allowed to sell to so many customers, in order to stay under 50% of market share. Apple could simply start charging a yearly license fee for the privilege of being a customer, at market price of course (a giant auction). Want an iPhone? Get in line, wait for someone to switch to an Android phone, or pay someone to switch by buying them a brand new latest Galaxy or Pixel, plus some premium perhaps if there are a lo

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[Venguer]

Hello friend. I would love to buy some stuff from you, but I'm a bit scared. Do you use PCI compliance while doing the payments? If not then there are a lot of pci compliance audit companies [verygoodsecurity.com] that would implement this feature to your online service. I think that you need to call or email them.