Alipay will start to charge service fee for cash withdrawal (balance transfer from Alipay account to bank deposit accounts) from 12 October 2016 as it announced earlier today.
Individual users have a quota of RMB 20,000 per year, within which any withdrawal is free; Alipay charges 0.1% service on each transaction with a minimum fee of RMB 10 cents per transaction if the total amount exceeds this quota. Users can also use rebate points to pay for the service fee.
Fund transfer to bank accounts from Yu’E Bao, an investment fund from Alipay’s holding company Ant Financial Services Group (formerly known as Alipay, is an affiliate company of the Chinese Alibaba Group), continues to be free.
Tencent’s WeChat started charging service fee since this March for cash withdrawals from WeChat Payment accounts.
China’s third-party internet payment transactions reached RMB 4,058.43 billion (USD 609.93 billion) in Q1 2016 with a year-on-year growth rate of 67% according to iResearch.
Read more: China Online Payment Overview Q1 2016