Alibaba seeks Alipay solution
By Ding Yining |
June 15, 2011, Wednesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
ALIBABA Group Holding Ltd is actively seeking to resolve a dispute with Yahoo! Inc and Softbank Corp, its two biggest shareholders, over Alipay, which it has spun off to gain a third-party payment services license.
Alipay was transferred to Zhejiang Alibaba E-commerce Co, a private firm controlled by Jack Ma, chairman and chief executive officer of Alibaba Group, in order to gain approval from the People's Bank of China to run a third-party payment business.
"We will actively discuss compensation plans and we believe we can get their consent in the end," Ma said in Hangzhou yesterday.
Ma said the Alibaba Group management team was authorized by the board to transfer ownership of Alipay to comply with regulations regarding the third-party payment license.
Payment service providers should be controlled by domestic companies. Softbank owns 29.3 percent of Alibaba Group while Yahoo holds about 40 percent.
The spinoff has caused investors to re-evaluate Yahoo's stake in Alibaba and driven down Yahoo's stock price.
"I made a hard decision, which was imperfect but was right at that time," the 46-year-old told a news briefing in his hometown.
Without the transfer, which was completed last year, Alipay wouldn't have got the license, which would paralyze Alipay and even Alibaba as a whole, Ma said.
All third-party payment service providers must gain a new business license from the central bank by August 31. Failure to do so will see the services shut down. The central bank issued 27 such licenses, including one to Alipay, last month.
Alipay had been in an agreement with Alibaba Group that overseas investors had control over the entity until the first quarter of this year.
Alipay was transferred to Zhejiang Alibaba E-commerce Co, a private firm controlled by Jack Ma, chairman and chief executive officer of Alibaba Group, in order to gain approval from the People's Bank of China to run a third-party payment business.
"We will actively discuss compensation plans and we believe we can get their consent in the end," Ma said in Hangzhou yesterday.
Ma said the Alibaba Group management team was authorized by the board to transfer ownership of Alipay to comply with regulations regarding the third-party payment license.
Payment service providers should be controlled by domestic companies. Softbank owns 29.3 percent of Alibaba Group while Yahoo holds about 40 percent.
The spinoff has caused investors to re-evaluate Yahoo's stake in Alibaba and driven down Yahoo's stock price.
"I made a hard decision, which was imperfect but was right at that time," the 46-year-old told a news briefing in his hometown.
Without the transfer, which was completed last year, Alipay wouldn't have got the license, which would paralyze Alipay and even Alibaba as a whole, Ma said.
All third-party payment service providers must gain a new business license from the central bank by August 31. Failure to do so will see the services shut down. The central bank issued 27 such licenses, including one to Alipay, last month.
Alipay had been in an agreement with Alibaba Group that overseas investors had control over the entity until the first quarter of this year.
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