Third party payment landscape in China is saturated but dynamic

The third-party payment industry in China has continued to flourish with market transactions hitting RMB23.3 trillion, a year-on-year increase of 35.47% as of April 10, 2015, says a report from China Market Research Reports.

In 2014, China’s third-party offline acquisition market transactions dropped by 11.65% year on year to RMB9.1 trillion, according to China Third-Party Payment Industry Report 2015. The tightening of regulatory policy towards third-party payment contributed to the fall. Over the same period, China’s third-party mobile payment market reached RMB6 trillion, a 391.3% increase year on year that accounts for 25.72% of the total transactions of the entire third party payment market. In contrast, mobile was worth just 1.3% in 2009.

More acquisitions are forecast even though there are 270 licensed companies in China’s third-party payment market – a relatively saturated state. One example occurred at the end of 2014, when China Wanda Group and 99Bill signed a strategic investment agreement. The former purchased a 68.7% stake in the latter for US$315 million (about RMB2 billion) to enter the Internet finance arena.