Payment can not "choose one of the two", strictly check the qualifications of shareholders... Nine departments, including the National Development and Reform Commission, issued a document clarifying the supervision of the platform economy and finance

Economic Observation Network reporter Wan Min The national development and reform commission website on January 19 news, the national development and reform commission and other 9 departments recently issued the "several opinions on promoting the healthy and sustainable development of the platform economy norms" (hereinafter referred to as the "opinions"), the platform economy in the financial sector of the supervision proposed to strengthen the supervision of the payment field, the implementation of the financial holding company regulatory system.

Recently, the General Office of the State Council issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Digital Economy", proposing that by 2025, the added value of the core industries of the digital economy will account for 10% of GDP.

Regarding the relationship between the development of the digital economy and the standardized platform economy, Jin Tian, a senior researcher at the Digital Economy Research Institute of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, believes that to promote the healthy development of the digital economy, it is necessary to adhere to the promotion of development and regulatory norms, both hands must be hard, standardize in development, and develop in norms. The "Opinions" of the National Development and Reform Commission adheres to this policy tone and makes specific arrangements and arrangements for standardized development, which mentions the improvement of the rules and systems, the improvement of regulatory capabilities and levels, and the optimization of the development environment, which are in the final analysis, in order to enhance the ability of innovative development and empower economic transformation and development, and guide the participants of the digital economy, including Internet platforms, to provide market resources and hard-core scientific and technological support for the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry and the real economy.

Strengthen the supervision of payment and data fields

"Strengthen supervision in the field of payment, disconnect payment tools from improper connections with other financial products, govern exclusivity or 'two alternatives' in the payment process according to law, strengthen supervision over abuse of the dominant market position of non-bank payment services, and study the introduction of regulations on non-bank payment institutions." The "Opinions" pointed out.

Over the past year or so, financial regulators have repeatedly emphasized the importance of compliance in the areas of security and antitrust in the payment and data sectors.

In September 2021, Yi Gang, President of Chinese Minsheng Bank, said in his opening speech at the Sino-German video conference on "Fintech and The Panorama of global payments – Exploring New Frontiers" that China's regulatory authorities are also trying to balance the relationship between encouraging development and preventing risks. Yi Gang said that the first is to insist that all financial activities are included in financial supervision, and financial business must be operated licensed; at the same time, payment is required to return to the source and improperly connect payment instruments and other financial products. The second is to strengthen anti-monopoly, issuing the "Anti-monopoly in the Field of Platform Economy" guidelines, promoting the opening and closing of large Internet platform enterprises, and fully protecting consumers' right to choose payment. The third is to implement prudential supervision requirements, improve corporate governance, and carry out Internet deposits, loans, insurance, funds and other businesses in compliance.

In terms of cross-platform interconnection of different payment instruments, cooperation between financial institutions, clearing institutions and non-bank payment institutions has been steadily promoted. In January 2022, the China Merchants Bank App and WeChat Pay officially realized the interconnection of QR codes, and customers can scan the WeChat collection code to make payments through the "sweep" function of the China Merchants Bank App. In September 2021, WeChat issued an announcement that WeChat Pay and UnionPay Cloud Flash Pay App have officially realized mutual recognition and mutual scanning of offline barcodes. On Double Eleven in 2021, Alipay opened 85% of Taobao stores to UnionPay Cloud FlashPay, and Cloud Flash Pay joined "Double 11" for the first time.

In terms of the management of non-bank payment institutions, in January 2021, Chinese Min min bank issued the Regulations on Non-bank Payment Institutions (Draft for Comment), in which Articles 55 to 57 clarify the definition of market dominance and corresponding regulatory measures.

Professor Weng Qi of Peking University Guanghua School of Management said in his speech at the 23rd Peking University Guanghua New Year Forum held recently that at present, in view of the four core monopoly issues of platform "unfair competition, abuse of market dominance, lack or restriction of competition, and improper use of customer data for profits", the mainland's policies and regulations have a basic grip, but these principles are challenged in practice.

"There is a big policy gap between strict regulation and inclusive prudence, and academically speaking, there are different reasons." Weng Suggested that platform antitrust needs to focus on four directions: how to weigh the contradiction between the principle of competitiveness and the goal of encouraging innovation; how to weigh the contradiction between the platform governance rules and the differentiated and personalized needs of users; how to look at behavioral bias issues such as inconsistent user preferences; and how to define relevant markets and related stakeholders. Weng Xi believes that in these aspects, whether to "strictly supervise" or "tolerate prudently" requires a "delicate balance", and fundamentally speaking, it is urgent to reconstruct the social goal of "platform anti-monopoly".

At the same time, the opening of accounts and payment scenarios of digital yuan are also rapidly enriched, which is conducive to efficiently meeting the public's demand for legal tender under the conditions of digital economy, improving the convenience, security and anti-counterfeiting level of retail payment, and accelerating the development of the mainland digital economy. At the press conference of the Information Office of the State Council on January 18, 2022, Zou Lan, director of the Financial Market Department of Chinese Min Bank, introduced that as of December 31, 2021, the number of digital yuan pilot scenarios has exceeded 8.0851 million, and 261 million personal wallets have been opened, with a transaction amount of 87.565 billion yuan. Zou Lan said: "The pilot effectively verified the technical design and system stability, product ease of use and scenario applicability of the digital yuan business, and improved the public's understanding of the digital yuan design concept. ”

The "Opinions" also proposes to standardize the use of platform data, strictly supervise credit reporting business, and ensure that it is licensed and compliant in accordance with the law. At present, the Personal Information Protection Law has been implemented since November 1, 2021, once again setting the sensitivity of financial accounts from the legal level, requiring financial institutions to obtain the individual's separate consent when handling sensitive personal information such as biometrics, medical health, financial accounts, and whereabouts.

The Measures for the Administration of Credit Reporting Business issued by Chinese Min bank will also be implemented on January 1, 2022, and on the basis of summarizing the practical experience of the credit reporting industry in recent years, following the principle of attaching equal importance to standardization and development, and taking into account both institutional supervision and business supervision, clarifying the scope of credit information, refining the compliance requirements for credit reporting business, stipulating the legal responsibilities of credit reporting institutions, information providers and information users, and providing specific and operational normative guidelines for carrying out credit reporting business in accordance with the law.

In the field of personal credit reporting, Park Dao Credit And Qiantang Credit bureau respectively obtained personal credit reporting licenses. Previously, the relevant government departments have clearly listed data as a production factor juxtaposed with labor, capital and technology, and data confirmation is a basic issue of data market-oriented allocation and remuneration pricing. Analysts believe that the steady and orderly participation of market institutions in the ranks of licensed credit reporting is not only conducive to data governance and data standardization, but also lays a solid foundation for subsequent data confirmation and even promotion of improving data circulation and price formation mechanisms.

Implement the financial control regulatory system

The "Opinions" require the implementation of the regulatory system for financial holding companies, strict examination of shareholder qualifications, strengthening penetrating supervision, and strengthening comprehensive risk management and related party transaction management. Strictly regulate platform enterprises' investment in financial institutions and local financial organizations, and urge platform enterprises and their holding and shareholding financial institutions to strictly implement capital and leverage ratio requirements.

The Trial Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Financial Holding Companies came into effect on 1 November 2020. Several Internet platforms, including Ant Group, have essentially controlled a number of multi-category financial institutions such as securities companies, insurance companies, consumer finance companies, and third-party payment institutions through initiation and establishment and equity participation in the past few years, and how to rectify them in accordance with the management methods of the financial holding group has always been the focus of the industry.

In terms of personal credit business, ant's "borrowing" and "huabei" brand isolation work has been officially launched, in accordance with regulatory requirements, ant consumption gold established in June 2021 will undertake the main undertaking of "huabei" and "borrowing" operations. Ant Consumption Gold currently has a registered capital of 8 billion yuan, which is the highest registered capital of consumer finance companies in China, but according to the regulatory leverage ratio requirements, it is still not enough to undertake the stock credit scale of the previous "borrowing" and "Huabei".

In the share subscription plan announced on December 24, 2021, China Cinda, as one of the subscribers to the capital increase, entered into an equity subscription agreement with Chongqing Ant Consumer Finance Co., Ltd., other capital increase subscribers and other existing shareholders. According to the share subscription agreement, Ant Consumption Will issue an additional registered capital of RMB 22 billion to all capital increase subscribers. Among them, China Cinda will invest RMB 6 billion to subscribe for 20.000% of the shares of Ant Consumption In cash. After the completion of the capital increase, the registered capital of Ant Consumption will be increased from 8 billion yuan to 30 billion yuan, according to the original capital increase and share expansion plan, a total of 6 companies participated in the capital increase and share expansion, in addition to China Cinda, including Ant Group (invested 11 billion yuan), Yuyue Medical (invested 1.0978 billion yuan), Shunyu Optics (invested 1.8 billion yuan), Boguan Technology (invested 1.3222 billion yuan) and Yufu Capital (invested 780 million yuan), in addition to Ant Group and Yuyue Medical, the remaining four are new shareholders.

But just three weeks later, late at night on January 13, 2022, China Cinda (1359. HK) announced that it would not participate in the share subscription according to the announcement that the company intends not to participate in the share subscription after further commercial consideration and consultation with the target company (Chongqing Ant Consumer Finance Co., Ltd.). On January 14, Yuyue Medical issued the "Announcement on Suspending the Capital Increase and Transaction Progress of Participating Companies".

The twists and turns of Ant Consumption Gold's capital increase may restrict the scale of its personal credit business, and even affect the pattern of the consumer financial market.

In terms of wealth management business, on January 4, 2022, Ant Wealth, together with six institutions, Namet Securities Global, GF Fund, Southern Fund, Harvest Wealth, CEIBS Wealth and Caitong Securities, launched the "Golden Choice Investment Advisory" portfolio strategy. However, on January 14, some users observed that this product has been offline in the Alipay APP. Market participants believe that this is related to the regulator's strengthening of licensed operations and the continuous increase in the regulation and constraints on the fund investment advisory business.

At the same time, on 14 January 2022, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) issued the Interim Provisions on the Supervision of Important Money Market Funds (Draft for Solicitation of Comments), which stipulates that if a single fund meets the conditions of net assets of more than 200 billion yuan or the number of investors is greater than 50 million, it should be included in the scope of participation of important money market funds, and there are management measures such as restricting the leverage ratio of important money market funds, compressing the remaining period of the portfolio, and stipulating the combined calculation scale of the same fund company on the same sales platform. Judging from the fund report data in the third quarter of 2021, Ant's Tianhong Fund meets the entry conditions for important money market funds.

In terms of insurance business, on January 19, 2022, Ant Group reduced its shareholding in ZhongAn Insurance by 46537063 shares, and its shareholding ratio decreased from 13.54% to 10.37%. In this regard, Ant Group responded to the media that the reduction is a normal investment decision, although the holding of ZhongAn's shares has decreased, but the strategic cooperative relationship between the two sides will remain unchanged.

On December 23, 2021, Tencent Holdings announced that it would issue approximately 460 million JD.com Class A ordinary shares held by it to eligible shareholders in the form of interim dividends. After the dividend, Tencent's shareholding in JD.com will be reduced from 17% to 2.3%, and it will no longer be the largest shareholder.

Jin Tian, a senior researcher at the Digital Economy Research Institute of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, believes that regulating the investment of platform enterprises in financial institutions and local financial organizations is to strictly implement the requirements of franchising in the financial industry and incorporating financial activities into comprehensive and unified management, and to prevent and resolve financial risks to the greatest extent, and it is not appropriate to simply think that it is for specific platform enterprises.