Editor's note: Non-bank payment welcome rules
The first administrative regulations in the financial sector were issued after the Central Financial Work Conference. The Regulations on the Supervision and Administration of Non-bank Payment Institutions were officially promulgated on December 17 and will come into force on May 1, 2024. Major institutions in the payment market generally believe that as one of the institutional arrangements with the highest level of effectiveness in the payment field in recent years, the Regulations have laid the foundation for healthy competition and standardized and healthy development for the future development of payment institutions. What kind of far-reaching impact will the "Regulations" have, and how will it transform the payment industry? 21st Century Business Herald provides you with multi-angle analysis and interpretation.
After nearly two years of discussion and revision of the Regulations on Non-bank Payment Institutions (Draft for Comments), the Regulations on the Supervision and Administration of Non-bank Payment Institutions (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulations") were officially promulgated recently.
The Regulations consist of 6 chapters and 60 articles, focusing on clarifying the definition and establishment license of non-bank payment institutions, improving payment business rules, protecting the legitimate rights and interests of users, and regulatory responsibilities and legal liabilities. The Regulations further improve the top-level design of supervision in the payment field, enhance the legal level of supervision of payment institutions, and more comprehensively and systematically stipulate the management and disposal of major matters in the payment field.
The responsible persons of the Ministry of Justice and the People's Bank of China said that the introduction of the "Regulations" will upgrade the effective system in regulatory practice to administrative regulations, further consolidate the legal foundation for the standardized and healthy development of payment institutions, and help create a law-based business environment, stabilize the expectations of all parties, stimulate market vitality, and also help protect the legitimate rights and interests of users, prevent and resolve risks, and promote the high-quality development of the non-bank payment industry.
Locate small amounts for the convenience of the people, and clarify the ideas and priorities of supervision
The rapid development of non-bank payment institutions in mainland China plays an important role in enlivening transactions and prospering the market, and has made positive contributions to the development of the real economy and the improvement of people's livelihood. At present, the annual transaction volume of payment institutions exceeds 1 trillion yuan and the amount is nearly 400 trillion yuan, accounting for about 80% and 10% of the total electronic payment business in the country, respectively, with an average daily reserve balance of more than 2 trillion yuan, serving more than 1 billion individuals and tens of millions of merchants.
In recent years, the central bank has insisted on paying equal attention to development and regulation, promoted the centralized depository of the reserve funds of payment institutions, disconnected them from direct connection with commercial banks, and urged large payment platform enterprises to rectify their payment business, prevent risks and hidden dangers, and achieved positive results. At the same time, however, some payment institutions operate in violation of regulations from time to time, such as: misappropriating user funds in violation of regulations, leaking or improperly collecting and using user information, and individual payment institutions taking risks to provide fund transfer channels for illegal and criminal activities such as telecommunications network fraud and cross-border gambling.
Strengthening the supervision of payment institutions is an important part of the payment supervision system. According to the Payment and Clearing Association of China, "the Regulations are the first administrative regulations for the supervision of payment institutions in mainland China, which build the basic framework and main content of the supervision of non-bank payment business, and will further promote the comprehensive and scientific supervision of non-bank payment business, and provide an important legal guarantee for the industry to effectively prevent and resolve risks, effectively serve the real economy, and form a high-quality development pattern." ”
The "Regulations" clarify the positioning of non-bank payment institutions in the payment system, that is, "to provide small-amount and convenient payment services for the purpose". The Payment and Clearing Association believes that as an important part of the payment system, payment institutions and commercial banks have their own advantages, including competition and division of labor and cooperation, so as to jointly promote the high-quality development of the industry. The "Regulations" also clarify the positioning of payment institutions for the convenience of small amounts, which is conducive to promoting the coordinated and balanced development of the payment industry, more effectively promoting payment institutions to focus on their main responsibilities and main businesses, clarifying the scope of business, improving service quality and efficiency, and effectively serving the real economy and social livelihood.
The "Regulations" proposes that the state guides and encourages non-bank payment institutions to cooperate with commercial banks to provide payment services for unit users through bank accounts. In this regard, the relevant person in charge of Tenpay told reporters, "Encourage payment institutions and banks to carry out innovative cooperation in corporate accounts, clarify the legal status of payment institutions to provide services for corporate legal persons, and open up space for the innovation and development of enterprise payment and corporate finance." ”
At the same time, the "Regulations" also clarified the regulatory ideas and priorities, clarified various illegal acts and corresponding punishment measures in the "Legal Liability" chapter, consolidated the basis for supervision and law enforcement, standardized the behavior of payment institutions, and provided a guarantee for the People's Bank of China to comprehensively strengthen the whole chain and full cycle supervision, strictly control the access of payment institutions, and prevent and resolve risks in the payment field.
The relevant person in charge of Alipay believes that "the implementation of the Regulations on the Supervision and Administration of Non-bank Payment Institutions has laid the foundation for healthy competition and standardized and healthy development for the future development of payment institutions. The regulations further strengthen the supervision of the whole chain and the whole cycle of payment institutions, which is conducive to preventing risks in the payment industry. At the same time, under the role of regulation, the payment industry will usher in further standardized and orderly development, which is also conducive to the long-term development of the real industry. ”
Functional supervision, re-categorized according to the substance of the business
In terms of the specific content of the payment business rules, the Regulations propose that non-bank payment business can be divided into two types: stored value account operation and payment transaction processing according to whether it can receive prepaid funds from the payer, but the single-purpose prepaid card business does not belong to the payment business stipulated in the Regulations.
It is worth mentioning that since 2010, the Measures for the Administration of Payment Services of Non-Financial Institutions have divided payment business into three categories: online payment, bank card acquiring and prepaid card business, according to transaction channels and acceptance terminals.
"The "Regulations" will change the payment institution business from the past three major classifications to stored value account operation business and payment transaction processing business, which can well solve the regulatory coverage of new formats such as barcode payment, face brushing, and palm brushing for payment participants. Meng Hongxing, the person in charge of Baofu's payment products, told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter.
According to the responsible persons of the Ministry of Justice and the People's Bank of China, with technological innovation and business development, emerging methods such as barcode payment and face payment have emerged, and the existing classification methods cannot well meet the needs of market development and supervision. Based on years of regulatory practice, the Regulations draw on the experience of other countries and regions in the classification of payment business, adhere to the concept of functional supervision, and start from the essence of the business, according to whether it can receive the payer's advance funds, and are divided into two categories: stored value account operation and payment transaction processing.
"The new classification method has two major characteristics: first, it has good scalability, which is conducive to preventing regulatory gaps, and second, it avoids regulatory arbitrage and is conducive to promoting fair competition. The person in charge said that under the new classification method, regardless of the external form of payment business, it can be classified and managed according to the essence of the business, which can better adapt to the development and changes of the industry, and classify various new payment channels and payment methods into two basic business types;
EPRO believes that the Regulations reclassify the business types of non-bank payment institutions according to "business substance", which reflects the concept of functional supervision and is conducive to improving the professionalism and fairness of supervision.
In the view of the person in charge of the network, the "Regulations" put forward management requirements in terms of business qualifications, business behavior, risk prevention and control, supervision and management, etc., and its promulgation and implementation will help to further improve the level of penetrating supervision of payment business, consolidate the responsibility of the payment market, support clearing institutions to more effectively crack down on various violations of laws and regulations, effectively improve the effectiveness and comprehensiveness of preventing and resolving risks in the payment field, and continuously help enhance the efficiency of payment supervision.
As for the specific classification methods and supervision and management rules for stored value account operation business and payment transaction processing business, the Regulations indicate that they are formulated by the People's Bank of China. The reporter learned that the central bank will study and formulate implementation rules in the near future, do a good job in the connection between new business types and the original classification methods, and promote a smooth transition.
Payment for the people, strengthen the protection of users' rights and interests
Consumer protection is one of the key tasks in the field of financial supervision, and the Regulations have made stricter provisions on the protection of users' rights and interests, focusing on preventing and resolving payment risks. The relevant person in charge of UnionPay said that Article 1 of the General Provisions of the Regulations emphasizes the need to protect the legitimate rights and interests of the parties, adheres to the people-centered value orientation, and fully implements the concept of "payment for the people" and "supervision for the people", which will help further strengthen the protection of the legitimate rights and interests of financial consumers, and enhance the public's trust in non-bank payment institutions and satisfaction with payment services.
In terms of specific content, the "Regulations" stipulate that payment institutions shall formulate the terms of the agreement in accordance with the principle of fairness to protect users' right to know and choose, strengthen the protection of user information, clarify the relevant requirements for information processing, information confidentiality and information sharing, require payment institutions to clearly mark the prices of the services provided and charge reasonable fees, and clarify that payment institutions shall perform the main responsibility for handling complaints.
For example, Article 12 of the Regulations stipulates that the payment service agreement shall specify the rights and obligations of non-bank payment institutions and users, payment business processes, transmission paths of electronic payment instructions, fund settlement, dispute settlement principles, and liability for breach of contract, and shall not include such content as excluding or restricting competition, unreasonably exempting or reducing the liability of non-bank payment institutions, increasing user responsibilities, or restricting or excluding the main rights of users.
Non-bank payment institutions shall take reasonable measures to remind users of the terms of the agreement that may affect whether the user agrees to use the payment services, and explain the terms and conditions in accordance with the user's requirements. Where non-bank payment institutions intend to change the content of the agreement, they shall fully solicit the opinions of users, and may only change it after 30 days of public notice in a conspicuous position as provided for in the first paragraph of this article. Non-bank payment institutions shall reach an agreement with users on the content of the modified agreement in written form such as data messages.
For another example, Article 32 stipulates that non-bank payment institutions shall follow the principles of legality, legitimacy, necessity and good faith in handling user information, disclose the rules for handling user information, clearly indicate the purpose, method and scope of processing user information, and obtain the consent of users, except as otherwise provided by laws and administrative regulations. Article 35 stipulates that non-bank payment institutions shall promptly and properly handle disputes with users, perform their main responsibilities for handling complaints, and effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of users. The State encourages users and non-bank payment institutions to use mediation, arbitration, and other means to resolve disputes.
"The Regulations put forward higher requirements for the protection of consumer rights and interests. Liu Xiaodong, general manager of Qiandaibao, a payment institution under Meituan, believes that strengthening information security and data security, fully protecting consumers' right to know and choose, improving consumers' sense of security in payment, and providing legal guarantee and fundamental basis for the high-quality development of the payment industry in an all-round way.
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