PayPal to end partnership with AliExpress

SHANGHAI, CHINA: EBay's online payment unit, PayPal, will end its year-old partnership with AliExpress, the wholesale website of Alibaba.com, from August 3, PayPal said on Friday.

"PayPal remains deeply committed to China by providing Chinese merchants access to a safer and easier way to sell to millions of our users all over the world. And our business is strong," Dickson Seow, director of communications for PayPal Asia Pacific, said on PayPal's blog.

PayPal said its total payment volume in China was more than $4.4 billion in 2010, up 44 per cent from a year earlier.

Alibaba.com is a unit of Alibaba Group, which is in turn 40 per cent owned by Yahoo Inc .

No reason was given for why both parties decided to end their partnership.