Alibaba and Baidu Win Tender for China’s Online Payments Processing Cloud Platform

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Tech giants Alibaba Cloudand Baidu have won the tender for a project involving the cloud platform used to drive China’s centralised system for processing online third party payments.

The tender won by Alibaba Cloud and Baidu involves the “Yanmai Project Open Environment Cloud Platform Project” (燕麦项目开业环境云平台项目) for NetsUnion Clearing Corporation (NUCC) (网联清算).

According to information from Cebnet.com.cn the bid amount of each party was in excess 10 of million yuan (approx. USD$1.55 million).

The project will involve Alibaba Cloud and Baidu serving as key technical service providers for NUCC’s cloud platform. NUCC makes use of an “advanced distributed cloud framework system,” with six data centres spread across three Chinese cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.

NUCC is the operator of China’s nationwide centralised platform for the processing of online transactions undertaken by the country’s third party payments providers involving bank accounts.

The company was established by the Payment and Clearing Association of China (PCAC)  (中国支付清算协会) and is subject to the supervision and regulation of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC).

Chines online payments are currently seeing rapid growth in tandem with the development of the country’s digital economy, leading to an attendant rise in demand for cloud services by financial and payments institutions.

During the 2021 week-long Spring Festival in china NUCC processed 7.793 billion fund-category cross-institutional online payments transactions worth 4.98 trillion yuan in total, for a YoY rise in the daily averages of 66.61% and 84.07% respectively.