Wanda taps into internet financial market

Chinese real estate conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group announced an investment of $300 million for its control of 99Bill Corp, a Chinese third-party payment service provider, in Beijing on Dec 26.

It is the Beijing-based property giant’s first acquisition in the internet financing sector, and the move was considered to be a substantive step in implementing its O2O (offline to online) strategy.

The two parties will launch a win-win partnership that could not only help Wanda set up a membership system with 99Bill’s data on consumption, but also bring a larger transaction volume for the online payment platform.

In 2014, the shopping malls, entertainment facilities and high-end hotels of Dalian Wanda Group received more than 1.5 billion visits. The passenger flow is expected to reach 6 billion by 2020.

All the businesses in the group will use the payment service of 99Bill, which will further improve its competitiveness in the payment industry.

With the most complete range of licenses in third-party payments, 99Bill provides products and services in offline, internet, mobile and cross-border payments, as well as solutions and added-value services for various industries, including retail, insurance, business and e-commerce.

It has cooperated with 200 financial organizations and more than 3.6 million enterprises.

The tie-up with Wanda will not change its independent operations and Guan Guoguang will continue to serve as its CEO and chairman.