Payment methods for China's online businesses have been a bottleneck for China's e-business development, but this is expected to change soon with a new bank initiative.

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has reached a strategic agreement for online payment and mobile phone payments with 12 e-business providers. Those providers include Sina (SINA), Sohu (SOHU), Netease (NTES), Alibaba, Shanda (SNDA), Tencent (0700.HK) and Hexun. ICBC has agreed to share its client resources and payment platform with those parties.

The new relationship will provide a more secure and faster online payment platform for those online businesses to use to charge their respective users for services.