It coincides with a wider government crackdown on tech giants' financial activities.

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) is looking to boost antitrust measures for companies in the non-bank payments industry such as Ant’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay, reports Reuters.

Under proposed draft rules on Wednesday, the central bank can advise the state council’s antitrust committee to stop companies abusing their dominant position or even break up a non-bank institution if it “severely hinders the healthy development of the payment service market”.

The move coincides with a wider government clampdown on the financial activities of Chinese tech giants amidst growing concern over the risk of financial contagion resulting from their empire building.

The PBOC will hold talks with institutions over their market dominance once a single player’s market share reaches a third of the total non-bank payments industry or when the market share of two players combined reaches half of the total.

It will also identify institutions as having a monopoly once a single player garners more than half of the market in nationwide electronic payments, which also includes online and mobile banking payments.

Here’s more from Reuters.