An industry source reported recently that Jack Ma, chairman and CEO of Hangzhou-based e-commerce company Alibaba Group, had recently led a delegation to visit the Ministry of Railways in preparation for a move by Alibaba's third-party payment processor Alipay into train ticketing. Alipay denied the rumor, saying that it had not arrived at a partnership agreement with the MoR.

Before the Chinese New Year travel rush this January, the Ministry of Railways launched the online ticketing site http://www.12306.cn, which quickly succumbed before an onslaught of traffic, leaving many travelers unable to log in or purchase tickets. The MoR has since invited Alipay and other companies to seminar discussions of how to avoid similar problems in the future.

Source:marbridgeconsulting