China considers launching an investigation into Alipay, WeChat Pay

The antitrust watchdog has been gathering information on China’s two dominant online payments services for at least a month on the instigation of the central bank, as per Reuters. An official inquiry would deal a serious blow to Ant’s impending Hong Kong and Shanghai initial public offerings, kick started just weeks ago and potentially the largest floats either city has seen in years. However, no decision on whether to proceed with an investigation has been made, according to Reuters.

Alipay and WeChat Pay account for the majority of the mobile payments transactions in China. Alipay’s share of mobile payments has grown for three consecutive quarters, rising to 55.1% in Q4 of 2019, according to research consultant iResearch. Tencent has 38.9% of the market.