|
阿里巴巴(Alibaba)有可能在本土市场失去电子支付平台的主导地位，原因是中国央行正推动各家银行联合推出一个与“支付宝”(AliPay)直接竞争的平台。
在阿里巴巴正试图向海外扩张之际，上述动态可能削弱其地位。该公司运营着全球最大的面向企业的在线交易平台。
据了解相关磋商的人士介绍，中国央行已开始与中国几家银行合作，旨在建立一个帮助清算银行间在线支付的平台。
“尽管央行的目标是使中国金融机构的网络银行运营更有效率和竞争力，但他们实际上是在建立与支付宝构成竞争的平台，”参与同监管机构磋商的一名业内知情者表示。
在最糟糕的情形下，央行可能让新平台在部分银行间在线清算服务上占据垄断地位。
“迄今无从得知他们将怎么决定，因此阿里巴巴肯定面对着相当大的风险，”上述业内知情者表示。
新系统定于今年8月投入第一个测试阶段，但监管机构预期要到明年才会对支付宝和其它第三方在线支付服务的角色作出最后决定。
Alibaba在海外的成功，在一定程度上有赖于该集团对其支付处理服务的加强。
作为其全球扩张努力的一部分，阿里巴巴昨日表示，它将在公司新推出的国际批发交易网站“全球速卖通”(AliExpress)上，接受通过 PayPal进行的支付。PayPal是Ebay拥有的第三方在线支付平台.
分析师们表示，监管机构此番行动对支付宝肯定是一个打击，但该公司应当仍有增长空间。
阿里巴巴的“强项是为某些行业和顾客提供量身定制的结算解决方案，而那是中国各银行在相当长时期内做不到的，”研究机构易观国际 (Analysys)电子商务专家曹飞表示。
西南财经大学中国支付体系研究中心主任张宽海表示，中国互联网较高的安全风险意味着，支付宝针对在线支付的信托付款服务将继续面对较高需求。
据本土研究机构易观国际介绍，支付宝是中国占主导地位的第三方在线支付平台，在今年首季拥有75%的市场份额。
该支付平台宣称拥有逾3亿注册用户，日交易额达到12亿元人民币，与中国65家银行有合作关系。
译者/和风
英文原文：
Alibaba is at risk of losing the dominant position of its electronic payment platform in its home market, as China's central bank pushes lenders to launch a joint rival platform to compete directly with its AliPay.
The development could weaken Alibaba, which runs the world's largest online trading platform for businesses, at a time when it is trying to expand internationally.
According to people close to the talks, the People's Bank of China has started working with Chinese banks to set up a platform that would help clear online payments between banks.
“While the central bank's goal is to make the online banking operations of China's financial institutions more efficient and competitive, they are in effect setting up something which competes with AliPay,” an industry insider involved in the talks with the regulator said.
In the worst-case scenario, the central bank could give the new platform monopoly status for certain inter-bank online clearing services.
“So far, there is no way of knowing which way they'll go, so there is definitely a sizeable risk for Alibaba,” the industry insider said.
The first test phase of the system is scheduled to start this August, but final decisions from the regulator on the role of AliPay and other third-party online payment services are not expected until next year.
Alibaba's success internationally rests, in part, on the group strengthening its payment processing services.
As part of that global push Alibaba said yesterday that it would accept payments made through PayPal – the third-party online payment platform owned by Ebay – on AliExpress, the group's new international wholesale transaction website.
Analysts said the regulatory push would definitely be a blow to AliPay but the company should still have room to grow.
Alibaba's “strength is in offering settlement solutions tailormade for certain industries and customers, and that's something China's banks will not be ready to offer for a long time”, said Cao Fei, an e-commerce expert at research group Analysys.
Zhang Kuanhai, head of the China payment systems research centre at the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, said that the high security risks on the Chinese internet would keep up demand for AliPay's escrow service for online payments.
AliPay is the dominant third-party online payment platform in China with a 75 per cent market share in the first quarter, according to Analysys, a local research house.
The payment platform boasts more than 300m registered users and a daily transaction volume of Rmb1.2bn and co-operates with 65 Chinese banks.
| 
