Call for Survey Participants / 寻求受访者: Online Payment and e-Commerce in China

Maverick China Research is looking for e-commerce professionals in China to participate in interviews on e-commerce and online payment in China. In exchange for your participation in the study, we will provide you with a summary of our findings. (We conducted a similar survey in 2009; click here for more information.) We are looking for companies that receive most or all of their revenue through e-commerce. Interviewees should be at management level or above and be able to comment on the company's various payment channels, its partnerships with payment providers and processors, and its long-term payment strategy.

If you are interested in participating in the survey, please contact my colleague Rosie Gao at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Maverick China Research 现在正在寻求在中国从事电子商务的专业人士参与一项关于电子商务和在线支付的市场调查。作为对参与者的回报，我们将免费赠送此次合作项目的调查结果。（这里有于2009年做的调查结果：点击此处获得更多信息。）对于项目参与者，您的公司应该以电子商务为主要的业务方式，并且对于公司支付的各种渠道、付款服务供应商和付款过程，以及对于长期的支付前景都较为了解。

如果您对我们的调查项目感兴趣，请联系研究员高瑞： This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Another Look at Taxi e-Payments in Beijing and Shanghai

Beijing taxi drivers, like their counterparts around the world, are known for being willing to talk about anything and everything. But one thing you won't hear them say, at least not yet, is “用卡还是现金？” ("Will you be paying by cash or card?")

It's a question I heard often on a recent trip to Shanghai over the Chinese New Year holiday -- in fact, I was asked in every taxi I took. The card in question is the Shanghai Public Transportation Card (SPTC), the contactless payment card used in subways, buses, taxis, and other methods of public transport. One driver I spoke to in Shanghai estimated that 20 percent of his passengers paid with the SPTC. He wasn't sure why card payments were so popular but speculated that it was partly due to the popularity of the SPTC as a gift. Like any gift card, recipients tend to spend it more freely then they would their own cash -- in this case, splurging on a taxi instead of a bus or subway.

The gift card theory, while interesting, is probably a minor factor at best. Here in Beijing the Yikatong card serves a similar purpose as the SPTC, but while many Beijing taxis can accept Yikatong payments, I've never heard a driver here actually suggest that I pay with one. Last year one of my colleagues wrote about the difficulties of using Yikatong for taxi fares in Beijing and targeted an inconvenient reimbursement system for drivers as perhaps the greatest obstacle. From what I've seen, little progress has been made on that front. And as long as drivers keep up their tacit agreement to discourage Yikatong use, it's going to be cash payments as usual in Beijing's taxis.

Would a "Mobile Direct Bank" Work in China?

At the Financial Channels and Payment Innovation China 2011 event in Beijing on December 8, one of the more interesting presentations was given by Mr. Makoto Shibata from Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Bank. Mr. Shibata talked about Jibun Bank, a venture launched in 2008 between his bank and KDDI, Japan's second largest mobile operator. With most banks viewing mobile banking as simply an add-on to their core services, Jibun Bank has taken the opposite strategy and made m-banking its primary service. Mr. Shibata argued that mobile banking is best suited to the younger generation, which is comfortable with mobile technology and does not want to stand in line at a branch to conduct simple transactions. He also pointed out that many young people do not have computer access at home (though they would at work), but almost all have mobile phones.

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Maverick China's Boaz Rottenberg elected Vice Chairman of Ischam China

Maverick China Managing Director Boaz Rottenberg was recently elected to the Board of Directors of the Israel Chamber of Commerce in China where he will be serving as the Vice Chairman of the board. The Maverick Team congratulates Boaz and wishes him and the chamber a good year ahead.

China Issues Third Batch of Third-Party Payment Licenses on Final Day of 2011

On December 31, 2011 the People's Bank of China released a third batch of third-party payment licenses (Chinese language article). Sixty-one companies received licenses, bringing the total number of licensed third-party payment providers in China to 101.

All three of China's telecom carriers -- China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom -- received licenses. Most companies were awarded licenses for the first time, though several previous licensees recieved additional licenses during the latest round.

The announcement came as somewhat of a surprise, though there were rumors earlier in December that another batch of licenses was coming out. On the PBOC website (Chinese), the licenses are listed as being issued on December 22.

To learn more about about mobile payment in China, including profiles of all m-payment licensees, check out our latest report, Mobile Payment in China 2011-2012 Edition. (Updates coming soon will include all of the newest m-payment license recipients.)

China Unicom's WO+ app platform unveiled

On December 9, I attended the China Unicom Mobile Internet Industry Summit 2011 here in Beijing. The event was a showcase for WO+, China Unicom's new platform for developers to host their mobile apps. Actually, WO+ is much more than that; Calvin Smith has written a thorough analysis of it over at the Mobisights blog. During the panel discussions on the mobile internet, angel investor Yang Ning made an interesting point about the many app stores and platforms popping up in China. Mr. Yang argued such platforms should be "evolved products" and should not start out trying to be app platform. He advised companies to focus at first on building up a user base by developing applications with a social networking aspect. For this reason he thinks that Ravio's Angry Birds still hasn't reached its full potential.

On a sidenote, it was amusing to see Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo screens placed opposite each other during this conference, in an imitating of the real-world face-off between China's two microblogging leaders.

Maverick China Interviewed by Reuters on Mobile Payment in China

Maverick China managing director Dave Carini was recently interviewed by Reuters on China's mobile payment industry. Quotes from the interview appeared in both a news article and accompanying video piece.

The news article examined the mobile payment industry's development in China, driven by the consumption boom here. It also covered the new license requirements for third party payment providers by China's central bank. Dave discussed government's policy regarding these regulations:

It's difficult to say what the government's policy is going to be in terms of enforcement, because they haven't really had any chances to enforce things yet.

In the video interview, Dave also looked at the future prospects for China's m-payment market:

In terms of transactions and overall users, it is already as big or bigger than in the US and the other markets. But I think in the next two to fours years, in just about every area, China's online payment market is going to surpass the US.

Maverick China Has Moved to a New Office!

After eight relaxing months in the picturesque suburbs of Changping, it was time to get back to the hustle and bustle of the big city. So on September 20, 2011, we packed up and moved -- right back into the same building we left at the end of last year. We're two floors up from our previous location and have added a new phone number, so please note the changes:

Dongwai Building 10/F #1012
12 Xinzhong St., Dongcheng District
Beijing, China 100027

北京市东城区新中街乙12号东外公馆10层1012室

Phone: +86-10-6416-2686; +86-10-6416-8586

As always, you can find our latest contact information on the Contact Us page.

Making Money from Microblogging in China

According to the latest report from China Internet Network Information Centre, more than 40 percent of the country's 485 million Internet users use microblogging services such as Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo. Discussion has inevitably turned to making these services profitable. Jiang Zhang at Seeking Alpha lays out several paths to monetization:

Last November, Sina launched a Rmb 200 million fund with IDG and Sequoia for developers to create third-party applications for Weibo. To date, over 36,000 Weibo apps were submitted, of which over 1,600 apps have been approved and launched on Weibo.... The key is for the developers to create relevant and exciting apps that complement Weibo's functionality and value proposition, and are not redundant to the iPhone or Android apps.

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Long Lines and Slow Transactions at China's Banks

Recently the well-known China blogger Imagethief posted a hilarious article about his frustrating experiences with Chinese banks:

"Surely no simple, retail banking transaction could take a freaking hour. But of course it could. I myself have been the jerk at the window on many an occasion, while some pensioner laotou at the head of the line pisses and moans loudly about drag-ass foreigners tying up the teller windows with their sketchy international transactions. It's not that I want the transaction to take forever. I have much better things to be doing than sitting at a teller window, like pulling out my own toenails with needlenose pliers or eating a sandwich made of Wonder Bread and used crankcase grease. But the system moves at the pace it moves at, which is roughly the same pace as continental drift. You know how in 150 million years the San Francisco Bay Area will be in Alaska? That's the exact same time your transaction will be complete."

A colleague of mine at Maverick China tackled a similar theme in March 2011 post as part of a series of payment-related experiences in Beijing:

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