PChome InterPay (國際連), a wholly owned subsidiary of PChomePay (支付連), yesterday launched a third-party payment and online financing service.
PChome InterPay, with a paid-in capital of NT$501 million (US$15.88 million), said that its service would allow tens of millions of customers within subsidiaries of PChome Online Inc (網路家庭) to directly store money and make transactions with third-party payment accounts instead of using credit cards or bank accounts.
The company said in a statement that it would introduce the service to 8.8 million users at PChome subsidiary Ruten.com (露天拍賣) and expand its customer base to include PChome’s other subsidiaries — such as PChome Store Inc (商店街市集) — in the near future.
Photo: CNA
“E-commerce business in Taiwan has great potential, but the legal framework [for third-party payments] was not fully established until last year,” PChome chairman Jan Hung-tze (詹宏志) told a news conference in Taipei, referring to the legislature’s approval of amendments to the Electronics Payment Processing Institutions Act (電子支付機構管理條例).
Jan said that previously there were too many restrictions on online payment services, which had slowed the expansion of local e-commerce firms.
Former Financial Supervisory Commission chairman Chen Yuh-chang (陳裕璋) had been remiss in 2013 when he refused to allow non-financial companies to offer online payment services at a time when the practice had become common in China and many other nations.
“China’s Alipay (支付寶) has provided online payment services for 12 years, while Taiwanese companies are only being allowed to develop online payment services now,” Jan said.
In addition, more than 90 percent of people using PChome’s auction platform are amateur sellers, Jan said, adding that they need a more convenient way to do business and transfer money.
Moreover, third-party payment services could also help build up a big database for analyzing consumer behavior on the Internet, he said.
“Companies could use transaction data to assess buyers’ and sellers’ credit scores to develop better services,” Jan said.
E-commerce transactions on all PChome subsidiaries totaled about NT$200 billion per year, he said, citing company statistics.
Asked whether PChome InterPay would cooperate with other online stores or platforms like PayPal, Jan said that the firm has no such plans at the moment.
“We will focus on our existing customers first,” Jan said. “It took almost 30 years to make credit cards a common payment tool in Taiwan and there is still a long way to go” for third-party payment services.
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