Alipay and UnionPay Battle over How Payments Are Processed

(Beijing) – A clash between two titans in the country's payment industry has shed light on the worsening tension between challengers and a monopoly defending its privileges.

The conflict surfaced when Alipay, the third-party payment arm of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, said on August 27 that it will stop its offline point-of-sales (POS) service for "obvious reasons."