Alipay to start charging fees on credit card repayments

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Alipay will start charging a fee on credit card repayments this month, a move that comes amid rising operational costs and tightening regulation.

From March 26, the Chinese payment giant will start charging 0.1% on monthly repayments in excess of RMB 2,000 to “ensure the sustainable development of its credit card repayment service”.

The fee will not be applied to credit card bills below the monthly threshold, while users that exceed it will be able to use their membership points to increase the quota without incurring fees.

Alipay is not the only payment service that has been forced to start digging into their customers’ pockets. In August, rival WeChat Pay expanded its credit card bill pay fee policy from charging users who spend more than RMB 5,000 per month to also include all credit card repayments.

The government’s tightening regulatory control over the payment industry, which is aimed at reducing financial risks, has had a significant impact on platforms’ revenue streams. Last month, authorities implemented a new policy requiring non-bank payment companies to place their customers’ deposits in centralized interest-free accounts, preventing the companies from making handsome interest returns from their customers’ money.

There are other contributing factors to rising operational costs. In recent years, Ant Financial has been ramping up investments in research and development of technologies including blockchain. It has also devoted more resources to user acquisition and growth opportunities in the offline payments market.

支付宝还信用卡也要收费了!

从 3 月 26 号起，支付宝信用卡还款服务要收费了！

值得注意的是，支付宝提供了每人每月2000元的免费额度，也就是说，2000元以内依然免费，超出2000元的部分，按照0.1%收取服务费。以还款3000元为例，超出部分为1000元，按照0.1%计算，服务费为1元。

支付宝调整信用卡还款的规则并非业界首例，去年8月1日，微信开始对信用卡还款进行收费，以下为支付宝和微信规则对比：

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