This post was originally published on South China Morning Post.
Do fintech giants Alipay and WeChat Pay have monopoly power? China’s new regulation leaves experts guessing
A new regulation drafted by China’s central bank, which seeks to determine whether nonbank institutions qualify as monopolies, has analysts and legal scholars pondering on the potential of Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent Holdings’ WeChat Pay being subject to penalties or broken up.The draft, which was published on Thursday to solicit public feedback through February 19, uses both “nonbank payment service market” and “nationwide electronic payments market” to refer to different markets. How the…