China Blog by Chinaorbit.com

In China, there are several services, which offer online banking. Big online shops like Taobao.com offer sederal online payment methods

1. Credit card payment. This method is not yet popular in China because not many people use credit cards – but certainly, the number is increasing fast.
2. Services like Paypal. This means, the clients makes a bank transfer to the account of this online banking service. After the client received the payment, the online banking service will transfer the money to the seller. The most popular service in China is Alipay.com which was foundet in October 2003 as part of Taobao.com and is a standalone business since 2004. According to its website, Alipay has about 33 Million clients already.
3. Prepaid card. This means, you have a prepaid card provided by this this online shop (if you are a regular client for example – or there is a discount on this payment method). You can charge this card at some banks, which have an agreement with this online shop. When purchasing a product, the payment will be deducted from your prepaid card.
4. Online account, which is actually similar to those prepaid cards. You just transfer money to your shop online account, your username is normally your email-address and the payment will be deducted from your account. You can charge your account at the China Post, which cooperates with many online shops.

Of course, payment in advance (which is not very secure in China) and payment at delivery are very popular in China.

According to a statistics at http://www.iresearch.com.cn/html/Online_Shopping/detail_views_id_10850.html on iResearch in 2005 43,2% choose payment in advance, 41,8% online banking service and 34,7% payment in cash at delivery. Only 1,7% choose mobile phone payment as payment method.