Chinese online-shopping Web site Taobao.com has inked a deal with the Bank of China and Alipay.com to launch a cobranded credit card, an official from Alipay, a third-party payments provider, tells PaymentsSource.
According to the official, this is the first time Taobao and Alipay, both subsidiaries of China’s business-to-business e-commerce group Alibaba, have entered the Chinese credit card market.
“Taobao.com’s users can apply for this new China UnionPay-associated credit card and link their Alipay accounts with it,” he says. “This will allow users to directly pay with their credit cards by merely providing their passwords when they want pay via Alipay.”
According to the official, the new credit card also will not have the 500 yuan (US$74 or 51 euros) limit for online payments.
Taobao.com had 155 million registered members as of the end of March, according to the company’s Web site.
