PayPal China Unit Gets Ready to Juice Up Its Business

PayPal Payments (Beijing) Co. Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of U.S. fintech giant PayPal Holdings Inc., has won approval from the Chinese central bank to almost double its registered capital to 4.52 billion yuan ($666 million), which will be the largest capital base of any nonbank payment provider in China.

The amount dwarfs those of China’s nonbank mobile payment duopoly, Alipay and Tenpay, which together control more than 90% of the market. Alipay, affiliated with e-commerce major Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., has 1.5 billion yuan in registered capital, while Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s Tenpay, which is embedded in its ubiquitous messaging app WeChat, has 1 billion yuan.