US Explores Curbs On Ant Group, Tencent Payment Systems (bloomberg.com) 66
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The Trump administration is exploring restrictions on billionaire Jack Ma's Ant Group as well as Tencent Holdings Ltd. over concerns that their digital payment platforms threaten U.S. national security, according to people familiar with the matter, a move that risks infuriating China and disrupting what could be the world's largest initial public offering. Debate over how and whether to restrict Ant Group's and Tencent's payment systems has accelerated among senior U.S. officials in recent weeks though a final decision isn't imminent, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity about an idea that's still taking shape.
U.S. officials are concerned that Ant Group and other Chinese fintech platforms will come to dominate global digital payments, the people said. That in turn could give China access to banking and personal data of hundreds of millions of people. Senior administration officials discussed the idea in a Sept. 30 meeting in the White House Situation Room, according to two people familiar with the matter. Yet officials acknowledge that it would be difficult to move forward until they sort out the mechanism, and that is proving difficult to do as the officials seek to find a legally sound approach. There's no indication the idea has been presented to President Donald Trump, whose approval would be required to proceed, two of the people said. The president fell ill with coronavirus a day after officials met to discuss China, and the issue hasn't made much progress at such a senior level in the days since, one of the people said. The report also notes that Ant, the online finance giant and owner of the Alipay e-payment system, "nears a dual listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong, possibly by the end of the month. An affiliate of Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Ant is preparing for an IPO of about $35 billion that would give it an overall valuation of $250 billion, twice that of Citigroup Inc."
U.S. officials are concerned that Ant Group and other Chinese fintech platforms will come to dominate global digital payments, the people said. That in turn could give China access to banking and personal data of hundreds of millions of people. Senior administration officials discussed the idea in a Sept. 30 meeting in the White House Situation Room, according to two people familiar with the matter. Yet officials acknowledge that it would be difficult to move forward until they sort out the mechanism, and that is proving difficult to do as the officials seek to find a legally sound approach. There's no indication the idea has been presented to President Donald Trump, whose approval would be required to proceed, two of the people said. The president fell ill with coronavirus a day after officials met to discuss China, and the issue hasn't made much progress at such a senior level in the days since, one of the people said. The report also notes that Ant, the online finance giant and owner of the Alipay e-payment system, "nears a dual listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong, possibly by the end of the month. An affiliate of Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Ant is preparing for an IPO of about $35 billion that would give it an overall valuation of $250 billion, twice that of Citigroup Inc."
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We need to do more than just "stand up" to China.
We need to actually provide a usable alternative.
China's payment systems are convenient, seamless, universal, and (mostly) free.
America's consumer-level system, based on credit cards, is clunky and expensive.
In much of Asia and elsewhere, people are switching to the superior Chinese system.
Trump's response is a domestic ban on competition. Really? All that will do is blind Americans to reality.
Re:Thank you Trump. (Score:4, Interesting)
You mean "free" in terms of wallet, not liberty.
Yes. There is no charge for payments under 1000RMB ($150 USD).
A typical fee on an American credit card is about 3%. Americans collectively pay about $105B annually.
If you mean that your payment information is recorded, of course that happens. Everywhere.
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Make it an open, standardized protocol, and you can have as much liberty as your wallet votes for.
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and china owns 51% of the business
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Hope your checks are still working out well...Let me know if you ever get chip and pin working...
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Now, the transaction fees are the 2-3% fees that retailers pay on your behalf. That's their problem, not mine
Retailers simply bump those fees into the price, even for those paying cash. If the fees were actually a line item on your receipt it would open a lot of eyes and more people would pay cash. But thanks to the legal mumbo jumbo retailers must endure to support credit cards, they are not allowed to offer a discount to cash sales.
The fees are hidden, just the way the credit card industry wants it. Just another middle man with their hands in the pie, and most people don't know it exists.
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That's not true at all. Gas stations regularly have a cash option that's cheaper. It's posted on the sign in huge letters. Cash price and card price. Some places will charge any card user a flat fee, usually .35c to .50c for the transaction.
If the purchase is big enough at a particular place, I'll ask if they offer any kind of cash discount. Sometimes they will, though admittly it's not common. If you never ask, you'll never find out.
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Even if it was a line item I doubt that the stores would charge less for paying cash. It is just a lot easier for them to charge one price no matter how it is being paid.
Re: Thank you Trump. (Score:2)
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the transaction fees are the 2-3% fees that retailers pay on your behalf. That's their problem, not mine.
Who do you think ultimately pays that fee?
they're not "plugged in to the financial system".
This is completely backwards. The Chinese payment system is much MORE "plugged in". The merchant gets the payment within seconds, and there is zero risk of "chargebacks" for fraud or disputes.
In America, the merchant may not see the money till the end of the month. They write off chargebacks as a normal cost of doing business and pass the cost on to their customers. That banks deal with deadbeats who don't pay their CC bills and, again, pass on the cost.
China is
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And big tech does this for free out of the kindness of their heart (whether Chinese or not)??
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And big tech does this for free out of the kindness of their heart (whether Chinese or not)??
The fees reflect costs.
In America, there is a high cost to managing credit and covering losses for deadbeats that don't pay their bills.
In China, the payment system is not based on credit and there are no deadbeats because there are no bills.
The entire system is far more streamlined and efficient.
Americans only accept their pathetic and wasteful payment system because they have been deluded into thinking it is "normal".
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Don't worry, the social credit system is coming.
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You mean credit scores?
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Funny thing, if you just pay your bills you tend to have a decent credit score. Apparently when you agree to borrow money and not pay it back, it upsets people. Who knew.
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I have very few bills to pay (they're mostly in the wives name) and no debt, which gives me a shitty credit score.
Also, I guess the Chinese can argue that if you just follow the rules, your social credit score is good.
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This. I have access to a lot of credit but rarely use it. It's nice to have options if things ever get bad.
I didn't realize credit card use wasn't a world wide thing. Credit cards can be rather useful as long as you are responsible with them and don't over extend yourself.
Heck, I've actually used credit cards to pay off big purchase because my credit cards come with better terms then some loan options.
While I don't have any balances at the moment (this hurts my score because they like the income stream) I s
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>> Who do you think ultimately pays that fee? And big tech does this for free out of the kindness of their heart (whether Chinese or not)??
They do it to lock you into the biggest system in China (or the world). Then once captured they can advertise to you. Upsell you other products etc.
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Yes I agree. It was a rhetorical question/point to be made.
Do you also agree it's just America crying and being protectionist. Because one of its companies won't be dominant?
And you obviously weren't being rhetorical, as you responed to retailers paying a 2-3% fee. Something completely different.
Nice try though.
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I am not in Trump's or Pompeo's head, so I can't assume, like you and others, what people are thinking (whether protectionist or not). Objectively, though, I think that anything that cuts the many tentacles of the CCP reaching across the world is a good thing, and that includes any and all Chinese corporations. Ideological wars nowadays are fought economically; you'd have to be stupid to financially enable those which will
Keep digging. (Score:2)
No, it was rhetorical for this post, I must have responded to the wrong sub-thread.
So you accidently replied to the wrong post...
But somehow you also accidently included the wrong matching quote...
How did you manage that?
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But you cant reply to something specific, and pretend it's a rhetorical reply to something else completely different...
Do you enjoy digging deeper and deeper holes? Or are you just trying to increase your post count?
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In America, the merchant may not see the money till the end of the month.
If that ever happens, it's by the choice of the merchant. In the vast majority of transactions, merchants run a nightly batch, and the credit card payments are reflected in their bank accounts in 1-3 business days.
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Your free to never come visit if you dislike how we do things here. No one, not even Americans, are forced to use credit cards. They are financial instruments that have their uses.
I personally like having the option even if I rarely use the now.
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The reality that the system is tilted to the already rich and any outside competition will be blocked whilst the USA backs US corporations access to other markets, using US intelligence services and the military, regime change, invasion, open up your markets to US exploitation or else. Foreign competition 'er' banned threat to national security interests, the greed of the few, it is becoming really publicly obvious as the USA is losing it's lead, open markets are being banned.
Pretty typical for the USA, a
Re: Thank you Trump. (Score:2)
Agreed.
Re:Thank you Trump. (Score:5, Insightful)
Its a pretty flimsy excuse being offered here.
I fail to see how kids buying hats for their videogame characters constitutes a "Threat to national security". And its going to make for one super weird court case when the administration tries to explain that to an annoyed judge.
I mean there are OTHER reasons to dislike the hats-for-videogame-characters market. But National Security aint one of them.
This is just jingoistic nationalism with the serial numbers scratched off, and consequences be damned, by an administration looking at a total rout in Novemeber
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Re:Thank you Trump. (Score:4, Insightful)
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They desperately need to be displaced, and if that comes from China then that would be fantastic.
If it came from the EU then that would be fantastic, they actually have laws to protect consumers. China? Not so much.
The "threat to national security".... (Score:2)
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... if there is any, is in the information that they collect on store on their users, not on their payment processing.
Actually, the justification for this is that the Chinese RMB will supplant the USD for payments, trade, and (eventually) the world's reserve currency.
That is unlikely to happen because the RMB is a controlled currency with capital controls and restrictions on transactions, while the USD is freely convertible.
The Trump administration thinks the solution is more restrictions on USD transactions. Abandon successful policies. Adopt failing policies.
Re:The "threat to national security".... (Score:4, Insightful)
So they are using an entirely unsubstantiated *allegation* as the basis for saying it a threat to national security?
I should have known.... it's hardly the first time he's waved around an entirely unsubstantiated claim as a basis for a "national security threat", I shouldn't be surprised he's still using the same tactics.
He's also going to do the same thing on election night, by the way,... declaring some entirely unproven claim to be a threat to national security, and a basis to declare the election invalid. Watch for it.
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Waving around unsubstantiated claims as basis for "national security threats" is practically an American tradition at this point. Iraqis WMDs , Gulf of Tonkin , etc etc
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That is unlikely to happen because the RMB is a controlled currency with capital controls and restrictions on transactions, while the USD is freely convertible.
As long as you don't want to sell oil to Iran, etc. Or anything else to get you or your country banned from the USD payment systems. All at the whim of the President.
It's clearly much more free than RMB, but don't go overboard praising the current system.
Swap the parties, see the reaction (Score:3)
I wonder what the reaction would be if "US" was replaced by "European Union member countries" and "Ant Group" and "Tencent Holdings" were replaced with "Visa" and "Mastercard". Because those would represent the same threat to European Union national security for the same reasons.
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Anyone who mentions the golden rule or asks to put yourself in the other party's shoes clearly is not sufficiently convinced that the US is the exceptional nation and can only be a Russian Asset trying to sow dissent. Or the Chinese scare word equivalent.
Have legal measures ever trumped tech and economy? (Score:3)
Have laws and protectionsim ever saved a country from losing global domaniaton?
Had the Roman empire outlawed barbarians, would it still be a world power?
Or the Spanish, the British, or the Chinese themselves - they all had the world once, and the lost it.
I admire US for trying though.
Europe is not even admitting that we have been thrown out of the the competition.
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Have laws and protectionsim ever saved a country from losing global domaniaton?
Nope, but they have quickly accelerated that loss.
Finally. (Score:2)
Epic games deserves a bit of karma for how much it has screwed up PC gaming in the past year.
For UK readers (Score:1)
Ant's the one on the left.
The power of digital money (Score:2)
This is not sufficiently understood, how digital money allows power to centralize even more. The US can now monitor and block money transfer all over the world. They decide A is not allowed to transfer money to B and it won't happen.
Digital money can be very convenient, but suppressing cash has severe downsides. States tend to like these downsides very much. More control is better.
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Digital money as it is currently implemented might, but it's possible to implement digital money transactions in lots of ways that promote security instead of eroding it.
Anonymous digital banking deposits backed in Bitcoin is a real possibility. That is, it's possible technically. I doubt if any major government would do anything other than fight it tooth and nail.
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I agree, but between bitcoin variants and the current situation let's not ignore the many intermediate cases. Take SWIFT. It is under american control(not officially) Making it neutral is an improvement. There are laws controlling how thorough financial traffic can be monitored. These laws can be adapted.
In the meantime other major financial mechanisms have been made immune to oversight, but they are only available to very wealthy actors.
National security reasons? (Score:2)
I get the feeling that when Trump entered office in 2019 that someone told him that if you want to make any changes to policy just claim it is for national security reasons. This seems to be his reasoning for most of his policy decisions.