Alipay to charge bank transfer fee from Oct 12

View of a logo of Alipay, the mobile payment service of Alibaba Group, in a hotel in Nantong city, East China's Jiangsu province, May 21, 2016. [Photo/IC]

Alipay, China's major third-party payment service, announced it will start charging fees for transferring more than 20,000 yuan ($3,000) to bank accounts.

The new policy that takes effect on Oct 12 said Alipay users need to pay a fee of 0.1 percent when they transfer money from the app's built-in digital wallet to a bank account.

The charge will be levied on withdrawals above the threshold, with the minimum fee for each transfer set at 0.1 yuan.

Run by Alibaba's financial affiliate Ant Financial, the popular app now enables users to make inter-bank transfers and to Alipay accounts free of charge.

With more than 450 million active users, Alipay said its new policy is due to "rapidly increase operating costs".

According to the new policy, the money transferred between Alibaba's online investment fund Yu'ebao and Alipay will continue to be free of charge.

Alipay is not the first e-wallet to charge fees. In March, popular mobile messaging software WeChat also began charging 0.1 percent for money transfers over 1,000 yuan.