China’s 360Buy Reportedly Acquires Online Payments Company
360Buy, China’s second-biggest B2C e-commerce sites, looks to have acquired an online payments company. This is indicated by a recent filing with China’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) which shows that 360Buy’s founder and CEO, Liu Qiangdong, is now listed as the legal representative of Beijing-based Chinabank Payments.
The switcheroo (Chinabank Payments’ CEO, Zhao Guodong, was the previously listed legal rep) suggests that 360Buy has acquired – wholly, or in large part – the online payment provider. Sources have told Chinese tech blogs, such as Sina Tech, that 360Buy will soon roll out a third-party payment service of its own. Indeed, rumors late last month suggested the same thing, and that the purchase is “basically complete” and will soon be made official by both sides.
The move is very much aimed at Alibaba, China’s e-commerce titan, which also has its own payment solution, Alipay, which has a staggering 700 million registered users, mostly in China. 360Buy is second to Alibaba’s Tmall site in China. The 360Buy site accepts seven different online payment methods – none of which belong to arch-rival Alibaba. Surely 360Buy has been thinking about having its own payments platform for some time – I’m only surprised it took so long.
Chinabank Payments is a limited liability company that has RMB 100.5 million (US$16 million) in registered capital, and was started up in 2003. It’s a fairly big player in the industry, though not one of the largest. But the payments company has one thing that is absolutely golden: government-issued approval to operate online payments in the country.
360Buy is also thought to be developing an online ad platform as well. Earlier this month the e-commerce site took a tentative step into overseas markets, shipping some of its items to customers in 35 countries.
