China's rich seek safety in gold, emigration

 京东甩开支付宝牵手银联

360buy.com, China's leading business-to-consumer online retailer, will terminate its partnership with Alipay, the country's largest online payment operator, this week, 360buy's CEO Liu Qiangdong announced yesterday.

Liu cited high cost as the chief reason for the termination, which came in advance of the scheduled date.

"Alipay charges four times more than 99bill.com [another online payment tool]," Liu said. "360buy has to pay between 5 million and 6 million yuan to Alipay each year."

Analysts speculated the move was perhaps aimed to distance 360buy from consumer-to-consumer e-commerce powerhouse Taobao.com. Both Alipay and Taobao.com are owned by Jack Ma, founder and CEO of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

Liu said 90 percent of its clients choose cash on delivery, while only 10 percent of clients prefer online payment, so the loss of Alipay won't have much impact on the website's business.

He also revealed 360buy is planning to team up with China UnionPay, China's only credit card association, over the next two months, but he declined to elaborate on details.

京东与支付宝分手的消息得到正式确认，处于股权变更乱局的支付宝，将在本周被京东商城提前终止合作。昨日，京东商城董事局主席兼CEO刘强东在接受本报采访时透露了上述决定。

“支付宝的费率是另一在线支付公司快钱的4倍，公司每年要多支付500万-600万元给支付宝。”刘强东直言，费率过高是京东商城选择停止与支付宝合作的原因之一。

外界传言的京东商城弃用支付宝是由于京东商城与淘宝的竞争关系。

刘强东表示，京东商城自有配送队伍是配送与支付服务合二为一的，京东商城90%左右的订单是货到付款，支付宝在京东商城在线支付中仅位居第二或第三位，并且顾客还可以通过网上银行直接付款，因此停掉支付宝不会给京东商城用户带来影响。

他表示，京东商城会在两个月内与银联推出新的更快捷的支付方式，但其拒绝透露更详细的内容。