New rules to cap 3rd-party payments online

New rules from tomorrow will limit third-party payment account spending of individuals as China's central bank tries to curb fictitious online payment accounts to avoid fraud, scams and money laundering.

Major online payment companies said they will be ready for the new People's Bank of China's rules on non-financial payment institutions that will set both daily and annual limits, based on the level of security provided by the payment platform.

The new rules aim to prevent payment companies from setting up de facto "bank account systems" on their own. The highest level of security will cap daily limit at 10,000 yuan and annual limit at 200,000 yuan. Payments above these limits will be paid from bank accounts linked to the online payment accounts.

Users of third-party payment accounts who do not have proper means to verify their creditworthiness, for example, are not allowed to transfer their account balance to other third-party payment accounts. Their cash flow will be strictly limited to the bank accounts under their own names.

Alipay said it has over 450 million real-name registered accounts and only "a small number" will be hit by the new rules.