Alipay to charge service fee for repayment by credit card

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Alipay will charge 0.1 percent service fee for repayment by credit card exceeding the free credit line from March 26, 2019, due to rising comprehensive operation costs, according to a statement released by Alipay on Thursday.

Internet services enter the era of fee charging

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Alipay said in the statement that this adjustment aims to reduce pressure on costs. WeChat also noted that each repayment requires handling costs through payment channels. Tencent's Tenpay has been subsidizing this part of costs to benefit users.

In the past few years, an increasing number of Internet services in China have begun to charge fees. According to a survey by the country's National Copyright Administration, paid content on the Internet accounted for over 50 percent in 2017. Users are growing accustomed to paying for premium content.

The fiscal report of China's Netflix-like service, Iqiyi, in the third quarter showed that its number of VIP paying subscribers was 80.7 million, up 89 percent year on year. VIP payments accounted for 41 percent of total revenue, while 34 percent of its profits came from advertisement.