China: Traditional banks, online services combat for market share

Chinese regulators are looking to quell concerns that Internet finance services are taking too much of the market share away from traditional banks, say reports, as the China Banking Regulatory Commission stated Tuesday it would look to establish caps on market control.

”We must appropriately regulate the Internet finance industry, and in the future we will set a basic or minimum threshold for the market access,” CBRC vice chairman Yan Qingmin said. “Otherwise, we will see unfair competition in the sector.”

Bankers have recently expressed concern over the growth of the industry to online platforms and have begun imposing caps on how much their consumers can move over to online services. According to reports, the online-payment industry saw major expansion last year with a 47 percent growth rate, leading to $869.2 billion worth of transactions.

It poses a challenge to Chinese regulators, reports say, which are looking to curb dominance abuse yet encourage payments innovation.

Full Content: Reuters

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