Chinese Internet shopping website Taobao.com has announced that it has cooperated with its sister company Alipay.com and Bank of China in the launch of a joint-brand credit card.

This is the first time for Taobao.com and Alipay.com, the two subsidiaries of China's B2B e-commerce group Alibaba, to enter the Chinese credit card sector.

With the cooperation of the three parties, Taobao.com's users who apply for this new credit card can bind their Alipay accounts with it. By doing this, these users can directly pay with their credit cards by merely providing their passwords when they want to complete an Internet payment via Alipay. This new joint-brand credit card aims to improve the Internet payment experience of users in China.

In addition, the holders of this BOC-Taobao credit card will be free from the limit of CNY500 for a single Internet payment. The triple financial guarantee mechanism established by Taobao.com, Alipay.com, and BOC will also ensure the smooth transaction of large sum of money.

According to the performance report published by Taobao.com, by the first half of 2009, the company had gained 145 million registered members, accounting for 43% of the total Chinese netizens. The launch of this BOC-Taobao credit card is expected to promote and guarantee the development of Internet payment and to stimulate the healthy growth of the general e-commerce environment in China.