Alibaba is now clarifying its decision to transfer the ownership of its online-payment unit Alipay to a company controlled by Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma.
The company says the move is a response to rules issued last year that could potentially bar foreigners from owning controlling stakes in Chinese Internet-payment services.
The Central Bank announced last year that it is going to bring in new rules governing online payments here in China.
However, those new rules have yet to be made public.
Yahoo currently owns a 39 percent stake in Alibaba Group.
Alipay is a small but critical part of Alibaba Group's business.
At the end of last year, Alipay was handling about 8.5 million transactions a day.
It is the main payment platform for transactions on the group's Taobao website.
