PayPal will become one of the first international companies to gain a payments license in China, after news emerged that the state-owned People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has greenlighted PayPal’s acquisition of a majority stake in local company GoPay.
PayPal, through one of its local China-based subsidiaries called Yinbaobao, will acquire a 70% stake in GoPay, according to a statement on GoPay’s website [in Chinese]. The deal is expected to close in Q4 2019.
The company’s full statement on the acquisition is below:
The People’s Bank of China has approved PayPal Information Technologies Co., Ltd.’s acquisition of a 70% equity interest in Guofubao Information Technology Co. (GoPay), Ltd., a holder of a payment business license in China. We are honored to become the first foreign payment platform to be licensed to provide online payment services in China. We look forward to partnering with China’s financial institutions and technology platforms, providing a more comprehensive set of payment solutions to businesses and consumers, both in China and globally. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2019 and is subject to customary closing conditions.
China’s onlione pay market today is dominated by local players, including eWallet providers like AliPay and WeChat Pay on the mobile side, there’s still plenty of room for it to grow — which would benefit PayPal.
On the mobile payments side alone, the market is expected to grow 21.8%, from 2017 to $96.73 trillion in 2023, driven partly by increasing demand for e-commerce, a report from Frost & Sullivan found. The market has also seen an increase in cross-border transactions, particularly in sectors like e-commerce, travel and overseas education. These reached $6.66 trillion in 2016.
The report additionally said the total number of active mobile payment customers is expected to reach 956 million by 2023, up from 562 million in 2017.
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