China's top five banks to offer free mobile money transfers

China’s five largest banks, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Bank of Communications, have announced they will waive fees for mobile money transfer services in a bid to stem the rapid growth of internet-based payment services such as Alibaba's Alipay and Tencent’s Tenpay. Customers will also be able to make online banking transfers for free if the amount does not exceed ¥5,000 ($765).

Home » Business

CHINA'S five biggest lenders announced to waive fees for money transfer services through mobile banking system and give a free allowance of 5,000 yuan via online banking transfers starting from today.

"This is a specific measure to protect savers' interest and improve banks' service quality," according to the statement.

The joint statement was announced by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Bank of Communications.

It came after central bank's notice on December 25, which urged banks to stop charging fees for online transfers amid rapid growth of Internet-based payment services. The notice also said that banks would be charged for clearing expenses at the central bank’s online trans-bank payment system if failed to abolish fees before April 1.

Most Chinese banks charge fees to transfer funds between banks that contribute to lender's intermediate income before the notice, but some of them started to scrap those fees since last year, as more competition has brought into the market by third-party payment service such as e-commerce giant Alibaba's Alipay and Tencent's Tenpay.

The China Merchants Bank free the fees for money transfers via its online banking service since September, 2015, and similar acts were taken by regional commercial banks like the Bank of Ningbo and the Bank of Shanghai.

On the contrary, Tencent announced earlier to charge Wechat Wallet users for withdrawing cash to personal bank accounts, as to "cover parts of its operational cost".