Alipay to charge for credit card payments

Source: Xinhua | 2019-02-22

Alipay has followed WeChat’s lead and will start charging users who pay their credit card bills through the app from next month.

Alipay users will be required to pay a service fee of 0.1 percent on credit card payments above 2,000 yuan (US$294) each month, according to a statement from Alipay yesterday.

For example, if an Alipay user intends to pay a credit card bill of 3,000 yuan, they will pay an extra 0.1 percent on 1,000 yuan, or 1 yuan.

It said the move was to address rising operation costs and that the new rules will take effect on March 26.

Alipay and WeChat’s digital wallets are two leading payment tools in China’s mobile payment sector, and have grown beyond processing online payments to include more offline merchants when people are shopping or paying for services. Users can link their credit cards and debit cards to their account and can also use their account balance for online and offline payments.

“We understand that trying our best to make ends meet would do no good for our long-term sustainable development, and we’ll strive to provide better services in the future,” it said in a statement.

Alipay users can also use their membership credits to raise the free-of-charge threshold each month. WeChat began to charge a service fee of 0.1 percent for credit card bill repayment in August last year, and offers no free-of-charge threshold.