[2018-08-25]WeChat, Alipay to Block Crypto Transactions on Payment Platforms

[vit05]

Coindesk

Chinese mobile payment platforms WeChat Pay and Alipay are scrambling to keep up with regulators after recent announcements regarding initial coin offerings (ICOs) and cryptocurrencies.

Both payment giants have said that they will work with the government agencies closely to monitor cryptocurrency transactions, according to news releases on August 24.

As CoinDesk reported on Friday, five high-level regulatory agencies in China – including the People's Bank of China and the Banking Regulatory Commission – issued a warning against any cryptocurrency-related fundraising and trading activities.

In a release published by Tencent, the parent company of WeChat Pay, not long after the news came out, the company said that it has come up with three main measures to regulate any "problematic" platforms related to ICOs and cryptocurrencies.

Specifically, the tech giant said that it will prohibit users from using WeChat payments to make any virtual currency-related transactions. Moreover, it will conduct both real-time monitoring of daily transactions and risk assessment of any suspicious transactions.

At the same time, in an exclusive interview with BJ News, a local news outlet based in Beijing, Alibaba Group affiliate Ant Financial, which owns Alipay, said that depending on the situation, it will restrict or permanently ban any personal Alipay accounts that are involved in cryptocurrency transactions.

[1BTC EQUALS 1CAR]

Okay? People already know that cryptocurrencies is not welcome anymore there so why do they need to publish this? I hope media articles get far away from China because we will only get negative news there but the good thing is that the Chinese people are still on crypto and it is really their government who is blocking the innovation to be fully utilized.

[magneto]

This is actually a huge issue.

Essentially, now, Wechat has the power to ban any accounts which is suspected of crypto dealings. This is probably worse than even the ICO and exchange bans that we saw previously. It's a direct shot at the p2p exchange activity that is going on on platforms such as LBC.

It will be interesting to see what Chinese bitcoin users and traders will use in the future, after this official statement comes out. Perhaps, there will be a reversion to offline p2p trading, with either cash or bank transfers as the medium. But with China becoming increasingly cashless, having Wechat actively trying to flag transactions is definitely detrimental to users there.

[Jukagid]

This is actually a huge issue.

Essentially, now, Wechat has the power to ban any accounts which is suspected of crypto dealings. This is probably worse than even the ICO and exchange bans that we saw previously. It's a direct shot at the p2p exchange activity that is going on on platforms such as LBC.

It will be interesting to see what Chinese bitcoin users and traders will use in the future, after this official statement comes out. Perhaps, there will be a reversion to offline p2p trading, with either cash or bank transfers as the medium. But with China becoming increasingly cashless, having Wechat actively trying to flag transactions is definitely detrimental to users there.

That is right. The crytpo is not illegal in China by the law. So it is not right to ban the transaction. ICO is not legal.

[BitHodler]

Perhaps, there will be a reversion to offline p2p trading, with either cash or bank transfers as the medium. But with China becoming increasingly cashless, having Wechat actively trying to flag transactions is definitely detrimental to users there.

It's not as bad as it looks. People can still use these payment apps to conduct regular fiat transactions, and as long as this doesn't form a problem, peer to peer trading will be able to grow effortlessly in China, which it did anyway.

It was to be expected though. China has been clear with how it's trying to combat everything related to crypto currencies. It's a sad event for people's freedom, but good thing is that peer to peer trading will gain more importance.

They can't endlessly keep flagging regular fiat transactions because the platform thinks it's related to crypo. People will move away if WeChat or AliPay start to annoy people by freezing funds and whatnot. There's too much at stake for them.