Alipay starts charging fees for cash withdrawal services

View of a logo of Alipay, the mobile payment service of Alibaba Group, in a hotel in Nantong city, East China's Jiangsu province, May 21, 2016. [Photo/IC]

Alipay, a leading mobile payment system in China, will start to charge service fee for cash withdrawal since today. It means that transferring money out of Alipay and back into a bank account will not be free.

The company says this move comes as a result of rising costs.

Alipay users will have a withdrawal quota of 20,000 yuan, or around $3,000, within which any withdrawal is free.

A fee of 0.1 percent of each withdrawal will be charged when the quota is used up.

Alipay users can raise the quota by earning points for using Alipay services.

Other forms of payment and money transfers, including those on Yuebao, an investment fund from Alipay's holding company Ant Financial Services Group, will continue to be free.

The latest move by Alipay comes just about half a year after a similar one by Tencents' WeChat Payment in March.