China Plans Online Payment Rules That May Hit Ant, Tencent

Warns payment firms with 50% of market could be a monopoly
PBOC will implement ‘comprehensive’ oversight on payment firms

An advertisement for Tencent Holdings Ltd.'s WeChat Pay digital payment service is displayed outside a restaurant in Hong Kong, China, on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020. WeChat Pay and Ant Group's Alipay account for the majority of the mobile payments transactions in China.Photographer: Chan Long Hei/Bloomberg

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By Bloomberg News

January 21, 2021 at 1:35 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

China proposed measures to curb market concentration in its online payment market, potentially dealing another blow to financial technology giant Ant Group Co. and its biggest rival Tencent Holdings Ltd.

The 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, according to draft rules released by the People’s Bank of China.