(Yicai Global) Jan. 12 -- US financial technology giant PayPal has become the first foreign company to take full control of a third-party payment platform in China.

Shanghai-based unit PayPal Information Technology acquired full ownership of GoPay Information Technology after buying the 30 percent of the firm that PayPal did not already own, according to corporate information platform Tianyancha.

The move demonstrates PayPal’s interest and confidence in the Chinese market and illustrates the opening-up of the country's payments sector, industry insiders told the Economic Information Daily.

China’s central bank announced in March 2018 that it was opening the domestic market to foreign third-party digital payment companies in order to spur competition. California-based PayPal took a 70 percent stake in GoPay in the September of the following year, becoming the first overseas payments platform to provide online services in China.

But PayPal may find it tough to compete with Chinese third-party payment processors as fees are low and the market is mature, credit card researcher Dong Zheng told the Economic Information Daily.

Still, PayPal also has advantages in cross-border payments, targeting Chinese consumers, while cooperating with international credit card providers such as Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, Dong added.

Beijing-based GoPay obtained a mobile and online payment services license in 2011. In 2016, it was also granted a prepaid card issuance and acceptance permit in some provinces, according to the central bank.

GoPay was fined CNY46.5 million (USD7.2 million) in 2018 for enabling illegal transactions and in 2019 the firm was suspected of servicing online gambling sites, allegedly helping them settle deals worth over CNY5.4 billion (USD830 million).

Editor: Emmi Laine