A Comparative Study Of The E-Payment Regulations In China And The European Union-Opportunities And Developments

E-Business and E-Commerce has been a new frontier in the B2B and B2C area and has reached a tremendous growth in recent years across the globe due to the ongoing digitalization of our business interactions.This is especially observable from the significant growth rates and market share of the large e-commerce portals such as Amazon,Alibaba,Taobao and others.Essential in driving this growth are online financial service providers that allow consumers to easily pay for goods and services as well as interface easily with the existing payment system.Given the rapid rise of these online payment service providers,such as Alipay,Tenpay and Chinapay,has presented a challenge for regulators to maintain public trust into these sectors while not stifling the growth of the sector.Similar growth in the e-commerce and e-payment business has led to the development of the directive on payment services(PSD2)that is intended to foster the growth of the e-payment sector while protecting the interests of consumers and businesses using these services as well as prevent money laundering using these services.The aim of the thesis is to address three core parts.First,the legal approaches in Europe and China regarding e-payment services are analyzed in detail in order to outline the different regulatory attempts and market conditions.In particular,the new directive on payment services is evaluated in terms of its applicability in China.Second,new developments in the area of cybersecurity regulations in China are discussed,and its impact on businesses relating to e-payment services.The new cybersecurity regulations outline the attempt to ensure stronger access control to data gathered within China to address the needs in a more globalized world,where enforcement may sometimes pose a challenge.Finally,different potential approaches towards the development of e-payment regulations in China and Europe are discussed where in particular the Chinese regulators shall avoid the rather over-restrictive nature of the consumer data protection rightsinEurope,while including explicit formulations requiring providers to enable other providers to retrieve data of users.