China's rich seek safety in gold, emigration

 京東甩開支付寶牽手銀聯

360buy.com, China's leading business-to-consumer online retailer, will terminate its partnership with Alipay, the country's largest online payment operator, this week, 360buy's CEO Liu Qiangdong announced yesterday.

Liu cited high cost as the chief reason for the termination, which came in advance of the scheduled date.

"Alipay charges four times more than 99bill.com [another online payment tool]," Liu said. "360buy has to pay between 5 million and 6 million yuan to Alipay each year."

Analysts speculated the move was perhaps aimed to distance 360buy from consumer-to-consumer e-commerce powerhouse Taobao.com. Both Alipay and Taobao.com are owned by Jack Ma, founder and CEO of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

Liu said 90 percent of its clients choose cash on delivery, while only 10 percent of clients prefer online payment, so the loss of Alipay won't have much impact on the website's business.

He also revealed 360buy is planning to team up with China UnionPay, China's only credit card association, over the next two months, but he declined to elaborate on details.

京東與支付寶分手的消息得到正式確認，處于股權變更亂局的支付寶，將在本周被京東商城提前終止合作。昨日，京東商城董事局主席兼CEO劉強東在接受本報采訪時透露了上述決定。

“支付寶的費率是另一在線支付公司快錢的4倍，公司每年要多支付500萬-600萬元給支付寶。”劉強東直言，費率過高是京東商城選擇停止與支付寶合作的原因之一。

外界傳言的京東商城棄用支付寶是由于京東商城與淘寶的競爭關系。

劉強東表示，京東商城自有配送隊伍是配送與支付服務合二為一的，京東商城90%左右的訂單是貨到付款，支付寶在京東商城在線支付中僅位居第二或第三位，并且顧客還可以通過網上銀行直接付款，因此停掉支付寶不會給京東商城用戶帶來影響。

他表示，京東商城會在兩個月內與銀聯推出新的更快捷的支付方式，但其拒絕透露更詳細的內容。