(Yicai Global) Oct.31 -- The online visa service of Fliggy, a travel service platform backed by the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. [NYSE:BABA], was initiated a year ago with the support of the self-owned technology patents and resources from Alibaba, Li Shaohua, vice president of Alibaba Group and president of Fliggy wrote in an online post on the internal website of the firm, Sina Tech reported.

Fliggy launched its online visa service on Oct. 28. However, a travel service startup, Panda Tours, claimed in a post yesterday that the online visa service functions in Fliggy, including online visa application service, optical character recognition (OCR), online visa photo-taking, visa progress tracking, click for delivery and some other features and services are identical to its Panda Visa project started since December 2015. Fliggy's online camera module guidance and settings are also very similar to those of Panda Tours, it added.

The firm also claimed that an investor of Alibaba sought cooperation with it in September, and demanded technical information, supply chain resources and other materials from the company in October.

Fliggy online visa service has been approved a year ago, Li Shaohua said in response to the accusation. The Luxembourg online visa center was launched in June, and the Japan online visa center beta version was launched in August. OCR, ID-photo maker and other functions have been completed, using proprietary technology patents and resources of Alibaba, Li added.

Regarding to the claim about their contact in September and October, Li Shaohua said that Fliggy has never taken the initiative to contact Panda Tours. Instead, Panda had a middleman to contact Fliggy in September for investment and cooperation opportunities, Li claimed. Fliggy had a courtesy communication with the company, but never obtained any confidential product information from it, Li said.