How the hell does Alipay make money?
It seems banking services in china work a lot faster than they do here (UK)... The UK has only recently been able to make EFTs in 2 hours or less between most banks, still on average it will take 3 working days.
Also Alipay works as an escrow service for this. They charge nothing for transfers under 5000RMB which is more like $750, and 1% for transactions made over this (like clearcoin, but without any bitcoin transfer fees!)
They make money off other services like alibaba. Even their ebay like service Taobao seems to be relatively free compared to ebay.
Alipay isn't free. How could it be free? They charge 1% for all amounts exceeding 500 yuan (about $75 USD).
http://www.china-online-marketing.com/blog/online-payment/9-faq-to-learn-how-to-use-alipay/
It only charges when over 5000RMB for verified users. Which is a lot of free spending, considering how much stuff costs in china http://www.china-online-marketing.com/blog/online-payment/9-faq-to-learn-how-to-use-alipay/
With services like this out there.. I think globalisation should be a greater fear for banking related businesses than bitcoin.