Paypal China has re-positioned itself in Chinese online payment market. It is now focusing on cross-border e-commerce, avoiding the direct competition with Alipay in domestic market. It’s a smart strategy, but there is a hurdle which is quite annoying, for cross-border e-commerce owner, they still can not draw RMB directly from their paypal account in any Chinese local bank.
But soon, it will be possible. Talked to an insider which explained me this:
1. As PayPal and Chongqing government have announced the partnership on international e-commerce, there will be some special regulation applied to the company registered in Chongqing.
2. Paypal has signed an agreement with Bank of China. Basically, if your company is registered in Chongqing and using Paypal as the gateway for your e-commerce, you will be able to redraw the money in Renminbi (RMB) directly in local Bank of China branch.
3. Paypal is now working on its API for Bank of China which will be used to link merchants’ bank account in Bank of China with their Paypal account. The service is expected to be launched by end of 2011;
Surely once the service is launched, it will be a huge boost for Paypal China as well as Chongqing government to attract more merchants. The insider also said Paypal would spend more effort on promoting its x.com open payment platform in 2011 too. Paypal seems already back on track in China.
