eBay CEO Sees “Encouraging Signs” That Paypal Will Finally Get Regulatory Approval in China

Paypal, the e-payments platform owned by eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY), has long been locked out of the Chinese market by policies that safeguard “sensitive” markets such as, well, everything. But eBay CEO John Donahoe (pictured) is very confident of getting full regulatory approval to operate in China’s $177 billion e-commerce market.

Talking at the Reuters Global Technology Summit on Monday, Donahoe said he sees “encouraging signs” that Chinese authorities will finally give Paypal the green light to compete against the likes of Alibaba’s Alipay or Tencent’s Tenpay. So, what’s the time-frame?

I am confident that PayPal will be the first non-domestic company to get a payments license in China. That could be in three months or five years.

So, pretty much anytime this decade. Or next decade. Or never. Good luck with that.

Already transacting $6 billion in China

Despite no solid time-frame or assurances, Donahoe believes that “over time you’ll see the Chinese domestic economy try to connect with the global one,” according to the account of The Economic Times. China joined the World Trade Organization over a decade ago.

Paypal is currently handling about $6 billion in transactions in China, though it’s not clear how much of that stems from Chinese e-commerce, or if that’s mainly from offline Chinese businesses using it for overseas trade.

It’s also unclear whether Paypal could operate as a wholly-owned foreign enterprise in China, or if it’d have to form a joint-venture (in which, as is custom, it’d have a 49 percent stake) with a local company.

(Source: The Economic Times; Image source: HuffPo)