Baidu Inc has won a third-party fund payment license from regulators, which will help the country's No. 1 online search giant to expand its share in the booming online personal wealth management market in China, the Nasdaq-listed firm said yesterday.

"With its huge user base and dominant market share in online search category, Baidu has strong competitive ability in the online fund sales market," said Guan Qingyou, vice director of Minsheng Securities' research institute.

Baidu will initially have Huawei Securities, Guangfa Securities, Harvest Fund and Fullgoal Fund as fund partners.

Chinese netizens search finance-related keywords on Baidu 330 million times daily on average, Baidu said.

The top-three Chinese dot-com firms, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, or collectively known as BAT, all have fund payment licenses now and they are set to challenge traditional firms and small players, industry insiders said.

Other companies holding the license include ChinaPnR and China UnionPay.

Tencent and Alibaba have 20 to 30 funds.

ChinaPnR, which got the license in 2010, has more than 50 funds, and ranks No. 1 in the sector.

Shanghai-based ChinaPnR said its enterprise clients include 1 million small and medium-sized companies, and more than 100 peer-to-peer finance websites.