In 2021, when the “new regulations on non bank payment” and “payment fee reduction” were successively introduced, the payment industry came into the spotlight again.
With the continuous high pressure of industry supervision and the promotion of interconnection between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, the Bay Area payment market has also received high attention in recent years. The reporter of Huaxia times found that during the year, many Payment institutions actively improved cross-border payment services, served the real economy and connected with the market demand of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao. At the same time, throughout the year, the central bank issued fines for payment institutions, violations and other cases are also emerging one after another, and the situation of difficult survival of small and medium-sized Payment institutions is still continuing.
In addition, digital RMB is also a hot topic in the payment industry in 2021. In October 2020, digital RMB was unveiled in Shenzhen for the first time. In July 2021, the people’s Bank of China issued the white paper on the research and development progress of digital RMB, which introduced the digital RMB to the outside world in the form of an official document for the first time. The industry is gradually familiar with the characteristics of no interest, payment is settlement, programmability, controllable anonymity and so on. However, the rise of new things often leads to chaos, and the digital RMB has also withstood the test of grey and black production under the public’s attention.
Looking forward to the future payment market of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Bay area, Kou Xiangtao, founder of showfin think tank and researcher of payment encyclopedia, said in an interview with Huaxia times that in terms of policy, the construction of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Bay area is a major national development strategy. With the accelerated interconnection of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, Dawan district is gathering world-class financial services. It is one of the regions with the highest degree of openness and the strongest economic vitality in China. In general, Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Dawan district has many advantages in national policy support, economic and industrial development and talent attraction, which is very suitable for the implementation, promotion and practice of financial technology, including third-party payment business. However, the payment industry in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao is also facing new challenges.
small and medium-sized Payment institutions are constantly changing
Driven by the deepening of digital RMB pilot, the improvement of industrial chain foundation and the normalization of strong supervision such as interconnection, the payment industry is ushering in a new round of changes. At the same time, many small and medium-sized Payment institutions are also facing pain and transformation.
Looking back on 2021, the reporter found that during the year, there were many cases of violation of laws and regulations by small and medium-sized Payment institutions in Dawan District, which reflected the tightening of supervision on the one hand; On the other hand, it also reflects the difficult living situation of small and medium-sized Payment institutions.
Taking tengfutong as an example, the platform is a comprehensive financial service brand launched by Shenzhen tengfutong Electronic Payment Technology Co., Ltd. under tengbang international. In March 2021, the Shenzhen Central Branch of the people’s Bank of China announced the latest publicity form of administrative punishment information, and two responsible persons of the licensed payment company tengfutong Electronic Payment Technology Co., Ltd. were punished respectively.
Moreover, in December 2021, because tengbang international, the controlling shareholder of tengfutong, was carrying out reorganization, tengfutong applied to the people’s Bank of China to suspend the renewal review of the payment business license. At present, tengbang international is making every effort to promote the appeal of bankruptcy reorganization, and there is still great uncertainty whether the company can restructure.
In addition, Payment institutions such as Yilian payment, Yinsheng payment and Le brush technology received millions of regulatory fines last year. The reporter found that Yinsheng payment under Yinsheng group had received many central bank fines before, The reasons for being punished for many times include “failing to manage the acquiring bank settlement account as required”, “failing to implement relevant risk management measures as required”, “failing to perform the customer identification obligation as required”, “failing to submit the suspicious transaction report as required” and “trading with unidentified customers”.
It is worth noting that Midea payment was also publicly punished by the central bank for the first time. In October 2021, Shenzhen Central Branch of the people’s Bank of China issued a ticket, which showed that Midea payment was fined 20000 yuan for violating relevant regulations on institutional management. Some Payment institutions have become “frequent customers” of fines. For example, Jialian payment, a well-known third-party payment company in China, has been punished three times for ineffective anti money laundering and violation of institutional management regulations.
In addition to the “flying” tickets, Payment institutions have to face the internal “mess”. In 2021, one card of wechat face brushing payment ecological head service provider is easy to conflict with its controlling shareholder Hengbao Co.Ltd(002104) . The main reason is that there are great differences between the shareholders of the joint stock company and the subsidiary on major matters such as the operation decision of the subsidiary, and they are unable to reach an agreement. So far, the battle for control has not ended.
On the other hand, some small and medium-sized Payment institutions choose to “sell themselves” giants. In 2021, Huawei completed the acquisition of xunlian Zhifu and officially issued the payment license. As Huawei and other leading enterprises enter the payment track, the third-party payment market has also ushered in new changes. “In the future, the payment industry may become the existence of \’multi polarization\’. What institutions compete for is no longer a single payment business, but the comprehensive strength of the group behind it.” Analysys senior analyst Su Xiaorui told our reporter.
As for the frequent punishment of Payment institutions, Su Xiaorui believes that at present, merchant problems and anti money laundering are the “hardest hit areas” for payment institutions to be punished, mainly because of the lax internal management and the fluke of not being found; In addition, from the perspective of the external environment, new situations and changes continue to appear in the means of money laundering, and Payment institutions do not keep pace with the times and improve the corresponding system, which may also be the reason for violations.
Su Xiaorui pointed out that in the future, Payment institutions should select appropriate tracks according to their own resource endowments, take compliance as the cornerstone and innovation as the driving force, and create payment solutions that meet market needs.
new opportunities in Dawan District payment market are brewing
Thanks to the continuous promotion of the integration plan of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, the economic and trade exchanges between the mainland and Hong Kong and Macao have become more frequent and in-depth.
In view of the situation of “one bay area and three currencies”, major payment institutions also actively innovate the service mode, further serve the integration construction of Dawan District, meet the cross-border payment needs of Hong Kong, Macao and mainland residents, expand mobile payment scenarios and promote the integration of financial payment services in Dawan district.
At present, residents in Tai Wan can realize the functions of travel, government service and life payment through Alipay. It is reported that alipayhk has covered offline stores, cross-border transportation, Didi car hailing, bike sharing, and public transportation in Guangzhou, Zhongshan and Foshan in all cities in the mainland. In the bay area, AlipayHK, which has all the Alipay logo, can also be paid smoothly. In addition, Alipay (Macao) also pioneered the real-time cross border remittance business to the mainland.
In addition to Alipay, WeChat pays its platform capability to help Hongkong and Macao merchants reach the mainland tourists group and promote the digitalization of Hong Kong and Macao industries. With the help of wechat ecological capabilities such as wechat payment and wechat applet, Hong Kong and Macao retail, supermarkets and other industries can also promote the technical upgrading of offline stores.
In addition, the reporter learned that at present, 6 million merchants in Dawan District accept UnionPay QR code payment. Among them, 80000 merchants in Hong Kong and Macao support code scanning through cloud flash payment app. In terms of transportation, the cloud flash payment Hong Kong and Macao pages support cross-border bus ticket purchase services. In Hong Kong, you can take Xinba Citybus and other routes through Yunshan payment “bus code”, and in Macao, you can take Macao light rail by scanning code through Yunshan payment app.
In addition, cloud flash payment also provides online payment of tuition, utilities, social security, taxes and other services.
From the perspective of market share, Alipay and WeChat still have strong payments, and the small and medium Payment institutions are still in distress. But at the same time, some new development opportunities are emerging.
At the beginning of 2021, the new regulations on non bank payment formulated a number of anti-monopoly identification and disposal standards, re divided non bank payment institutions into stored value account operation and payment transaction processing according to their business types, and cut the financial attribute and scientific and technological attribute of payment in the top-level design of supervision, so as to improve the targeting of follow-up supervision.
With the promotion of antitrust, the payment products of some small and medium-sized institutions in Dawan district have also obtained more development space. Analysys released the report on China’s third-party payment mobile market in the third quarter of 2021, which shows that in the third quarter of 2021, the market share of one wallet was 1.19%, ranking third in the market. The reporter learned from the mid year financial report of Ping An Group in 2021 that one wallet has served 349 million individual users and 2.15 million industry customers.
On the other hand, the application scenario of the digital RMB pilot is also accelerating the expansion, and the user scale is expanding. According to the data disclosed by the central bank, as of October 22, 2021, the number of digital RMB personal wallets has reached 140 million, 10 million corporate wallets, more than 150 million transactions and about 62 billion yuan.
Driven by the government and the market, the scale of digital RMB pilot business and the level of basic financial services in Shenzhen have also been further improved. In December 2021, Mu Changchun, director of the digital currency Research Institute of the central bank, said that the digital currency Research Institute of the central bank is carrying out a series of cooperation with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. The two sides have successfully carried out the first stage of technical test to realize the basic functions of recharge, transfer and consumption through digital RMB wallet within the scope of local banks and designated Hong Kong merchants in Hong Kong. At present, the two sides are carrying out the second stage of research to explore the interconnection between the digital RMB system and the “fast revolution” rapid payment system.
This is the first breakthrough attempt of digital RMB in the cross-border scene, and also provides a direction for the application and landing of digital RMB in the Great Bay area of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao. Su Xiaorui believes that the customer base of digital RMB in Shenzhen is expanding in an orderly manner, extending from users in pilot areas in the mainland to individual users in Hong Kong, China. On the other hand, it also reflects the continuous enrichment of digital RMB scenarios, which can lay a foundation for further expanding the application in cross-border payment.
