Read this on sma tread thought it had more importance in here. Open to thoughts
China plans to tighten regulations governing the nation’s 270 online-payment firms including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s finance arm, dealing another blow to the booming business of Internet finance.
Under draft rules published on July 31, the central bank will limit the amount an individual can pay online to 5,000 yuan ($805) per day through third-party payment accounts, unless the customer’s identity can be verified by a security token and electronic signature. The People’s Bank of China is seeking public feedback by Aug. 28.
The central bank last month imposed stricter ruleson the industry, which analysts expected to lead to sweeping changes and failures among online lenders.
Internet finance is posing a rising challenge to China’s traditional banks, which have lobbied for more regulation on third-party payments and peer-to-peer lending platforms. Online lenders helped fuel a stock-market boom that drove the benchmark index up 152 percent in the year to June 12 before crashing.
According to Friday’s draft rules, customers with at least five methods of verifications can open a so-called “comprehensive account,” which limits annual online or mobile payments to 200,000 yuan per person. With three to five verification methods, customer can only open a “consumption account,” with an annual transaction limit of 100,000 yuan.
‘Unfair Advantage’
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