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JD.com launches shopper credit service
京東商城出爐信用卡購物服務
China's second-largest online retailer JD.com, or Jingdong, is about to launch a virtual credit card service. The service will let shoppers buy items at the company's online marketplace on credit. This is the company's first move into consumer finance, and comes two weeks after it announced plans for a U.S. IPO.
The new service will offer qualified consumers a credit line of up to 15,000 yuan, or 2,470 U.S. dollars.
The biggest spenders won't necessarily get the biggest credit lines. The E-commerce giant says credit quotas will vary and will be based on customers' shopping records and their comments on purchased products.
"To put it simply, when a client buys baby products in large quantities, it shows the client has a stable family and a child. There's no doubt this client is highly credible and stable. Based on such information, we are able to offer such clients credit lines, whose risks are difficult to assess in traditional banking," said Xu Ling, Director of Consumer Finance at JD.com.
JD.com says its service fee will be about half that of comparable services offered by banks. JD.com has started a two-day beta phase and approved users will be able to activate the service on Saturday. For now, the virtual credit card service may attract more online shoppers, but may become a full-fledged revenue earner in the future.
Analysts expect more companies to venture into consumer finance, which stands at only 18 percent of China's total loans.
