Shanghai’s iPS Ordered to Suspend Online Payments Operations after Incurring Record High Fine

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One of China’s longest-running payments companies has been ordered by regulators to suspend its online payments operations.

Shanghai regulators have just issued a directive to local payments company iPS (环迅支付) ordering it to suspend online payments operations within a three month period, as well as refrain from entering any further special agreements with real vendors.

According to one source in the payments sector this means that iPS will not be able to add any new offline vendors and can only provide services to existing real vendors, while they must also withdraw completely from online operations.

Earlier this year in July iPS incurred a fine of 59.39 million yuan from Chinese regulators – the largest fine ever dispensed to a third party payments provider in China.

Chinese authorities have yet to provide specific details, however, on the precise reasons behind the issuance of the fine.

iPS was established in 2000, and is one of China’s oldest payments companies.

The company has tens of millions of card-holding clients, and has entered cooperative relationships with leading domestic banks in China as well as international card companies such as VISA, MasterCard, JCB and Singapore’s NETS.