Leading online travel agent Trip.comsaid on Tuesday the central bank has approved its application to acquire a Shanghai-based online payments company, making it the latest of China’s internet majors to seek such a license, reported Caixin.
In a brief statement on the deal, Trip.com said it hopes its acquisition of the company, which operates the occard.com.cn website, will help to stimulate demand by boosting convenience for consumers during the current dramatic travel slowdown.
The Shanghai-based license holder, whose Chinese name is Dongfang Huirong, was founded in 2011 and received its payment license a year later. At the time, China’s central bank had just begun experimenting with such licenses in a bid to liberalize the country’s financial services system that was controlled almost exclusively by traditional, slow-moving state-run banks at that time.
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