Applications of China's five biggest banks are seen on a smartphone in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. The five banks yesterday said fees would be waived for money transfers via mobile banking.(Photo/Xinhua)
China's five biggest lenders yesterday said fees are waived for money transfers via mobile banking while a free allowance of 5,000 yuan ($765) is offered for online banking transfers.
"This is a specific measure to protect savers' interest and improve banks' service quality," said a joint statement from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the Agricultural Bank of China, the Bank of China, China Construction Bank and the Bank of Communications.
The waiver, effective from yesterday, came after the People's Bank of China sent a notice on December 25 to urge banks to stop charging fees for online transfers amid a rapid growth of Internet-based payment services.
The notice also said banks would have to pay liquidation expenses if they failed to abolish fees before April 1.
Most Chinese banks charge fees for fund transfers between banks, contributing to lenders' intermediate income before the notice. But some have started to scrap the fees since last year amid stiffer competition posed by third-party payment services such as Alibaba's Alipay and Tencent's Tenpay. Tencent said earlier that it would charge WeChat Wallet users for transferring cash to personal bank accounts.
China Merchants Bank has waived fees for money transfers through its online banking service since September, and regional commercial lenders like the Bank of Ningbo and the Bank of Shanghai have also taken similar measures.
