Wirecard has is taking over a Beijing-based payments group for up to €109m, the first purchase of a Chinese company by the controversial German fintech group.

The acquisition of AllScore Payment Services follows PayPal’s purchase of Chinese payments group Gopay Information Technology, which was approved by China’s central bank in September.

China’s market for online payments is rapidly growing and is dominated by two tech giants: Tencent, which runs WeChat Pay via its social-messaging platform, and Alibaba, whose payments affiliate Ant Financial owns Alipay.

Wirecard said the key motivation for the deal was AllScore’s “attractive licence portfolio [for digital payments]”, adding that the transaction underlines its “strategy to expand its global technology platform by way of cross-border licences”.