CHINA’S central bank has proposed stepping up antitrust measures for companies in the non-bank payment industry, in a move to curb market concentration in the country’s online payment market.

Under draft rules proposed Wednesday, the People’s Bank of China, the central bank, can advise the State Council’s antitrust committee to stop companies abusing their dominant position or even break up a non-bank institution if it “severely hinders the healthy development of the payment service market.”

So far, China has 233 licensed players, with the market dominated by Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat Pay in terms of online transactions, according to a report by consultancy iResearch.

The central bank will hold talks with institutions over their market dominance once a single player’s market share reaches a third of the total non-bank payment industry or when the market share of two players combined reaches half of the total.

It will also identify institutions as having a monopoly once a single player garners more than half of the market in nationwide electronic payments, which also includes online and mobile banking payments.

To fend off systemic risk, the central bank will be obliged to draft new rules to list and regulate systemically important non-bank payment institutions, the draft rules say.

The rules present the strongest and most detailed message yet of regulators’ plans to curb monopolistic practices in the online payment industry.

“This shows there’s no let-up in regulatory tightening on the sprawling fintech businesses,” said Dong Ximiao, a researcher at Zhongguancun Internet Finance Institute. “The rules fill the void of defining market monopoly in China’s payment industry.” (SD-Agencies)