Text | Li Bing
rumor! rumor! rumor!
The implementation of the new rules for payment acceptance terminals from March 1 continues to attract widespread attention in the industry, among which the provision that "personal collection codes cannot be used for business collections" has been misread since last year, and this time the rumors have come again!
The matter stems from the fact that some media reports recently said, "According to online news, from March 1, 2022, the personal collection codes of WeChat and Alipay must not be used for operational collections." Not only that, the data of the past 4 years will be traced, and once the amount is large, it will be taxed at 4.5%, and late fees and fines will also be paid. Subsequently, the incident further fermented, and even the topic of "WeChat Alipay responded to track down the data of personal collection codes for the past 4 years" was rushed to weibo hot search. As of 12:50 noon on February 18, the topic had been read 290 million times. Subsequently, WeChat and Alipay both debunked rumors that "using personal collection codes to make up taxes" was a rumor.
On February 18, Tencent responded to the Securities Daily reporter that the news of the tax refund is a rumor, and the specific official notice shall prevail.
On the same day, Alipay also responded to the "Securities Daily" reporter that the above statement is a rumor.
In addition, the reporter also noticed that some agency intermediaries have also begun to "fish in muddy waters" to rub hot spots, publicizing that some "mobile vendors" have seized the opportunity to open merchant collection codes, and there are also some small merchants who are "sick and rushing to the hospital". For example, recently in WeChat about how to handle the merchant collection code? Teach you how to open a merchant collection code? And other topics continue to be hot.
Wang Pengbo, a senior analyst in the financial industry of Broadcom Consulting, reminded that merchants in need should be vigilant against exaggerated publicity by some groups for their own interests, and relevant users must not listen to rumors and avoid being deceived. In order to ensure that the normal use of users is not affected, the relevant standards will certainly take into account the legitimate rights and interests of individual merchants such as street stalls that are exempt from industrial and commercial registration, and will certainly not increase the operating costs of small and micro merchants. It is recommended that "mobile vendors" patiently wait for the introduction of regulatory rules and then upgrade according to the regulations, and do not mistakenly believe rumors.
In response to the commercial use of personal collection codes, the securities daily reporter also combed through and restored the context of the incident. As early as October 13, 2021, the People's Bank of China issued the Notice of the people's bank of Chinese on Strengthening the Management of Payment Acceptance Terminals and Related Businesses (Yinfa [2021] No. 259) (hereinafter referred to as "Circular 259"), which stipulates the management of receipt barcodes; it is mentioned that bar code payments will be included in the supervision and specific provisions will be made on the use of personal collection barcodes, which will be implemented from March 1, 2022.
In November 2021, a message about "from March 1, 2022, the personal collection code is disabled from commercial services" swept the screen network, which was once misread as Alipay and WeChat Pay QR code collection can no longer be used. The central bank then responded that the statement was a misreading.
In fact, there are three points that attract attention in Document No. 259: 1. Restrict the remote collection of personal collection codes (the collection code is not disabled offline face-to-face); 2. It is not allowed to provide business activity-related collection services for individuals with obvious business activity characteristics through personal collection barcodes; 3. If it is necessary to carry out remote non-face-to-face collection, then the whitelist management system is implemented.
"Securities Daily" reporter noted that from the relevant provisions of Document No. 259 can still see the relevant guidance direction on the commercial use of personal payment codes, for example, "for individuals with obvious business activity characteristics" personal collection codes can not be used for business collection; then the definition of obvious business activity characteristics is a more point of view of the conditions, if the relevant rules require a higher upper limit of business data, then "mobile vendors" and "stall economy" may not be affected; second, for small and micro merchants such as general "mobile vendors" , its face-to-face collection is more common, and the above provisions can not be used for remote non-face-to-face collection, it has less impact on the practical application level. From the regulatory level, restricting the remote collection of personal collection codes is more for frequent violations such as running points, gambling, and electronic fraud.
Some insiders analyzed the "Securities Daily" reporter that there is a high probability that the corresponding rules will be issued after extensive research, and ensure that under the premise of "mobile vendors" and "stall economy" or not too much impact, the cost of personal collection bar code transcoding upgrade will not increase, and the service will not decrease.
Looking at the current industry situation, the collection bar code has been widely popularized and applied, becoming a mobile payment method often used by mainland consumers, and has played an active role in improving the efficiency of capital receipt and payment of small and micro economies and local stall economies, supporting small and micro enterprises to resume work and production, and promoting national economic development. At the same time, it should not be ignored that there are also hidden risks in personal collection barcodes, which bring about problems such as facilitating the circulation of funds in black and ash industries such as cross-border gambling, confusing the transaction background and payment business attributes, causing distortion of transaction information and payment data, and difficulties in tracing the capital chain, harming the interests of the people and affecting the security of payment.
Industry analysts interviewed by reporters generally believe that the commercial use of personal collection codes is limited, and it is more urgent to be illegal platforms such as "running points", "gambling" and "telecommunications fraud". At present, while facilitating users to collect payments, the collection bar code lacks the necessary control, and has become the main carrier for criminals to build a "running sub-platform", and is used for cross-border gambling, new types of telecommunications network fraud and other black and ash industry problems. The gambling gang uses illegal funds to zero, uses high returns as bait to attract a large number of people to use personal static collection barcodes to transfer gambling funds remotely online with gamblers "point-to-point", and hides gambling funds in many normal trading scenarios, disrupting the normal order of bar code payment business and affecting the effectiveness of the "capital chain" traceability mechanism involving gambling.
Wang Pengbo told the "Securities Daily" reporter frankly that to correctly understand the "original intention" issued by Document 259, the specification of personal bar codes is to avoid ordinary users' code cards being used by fraudsters and running platforms, to avoid personal codes becoming channels for running points, and the rest should not and should not be over-interpreted. "In fact, the core requirement of Circular 259 is to strengthen the management of payment terminals, especially POS machines. After the implementation of the policy on March 1, violations such as one machine multi-household and one machine multi-code will be suppressed, and violations such as skipping codes and cashing out may be hit hard. ”
Su Xiaorui, a senior analyst in the financial industry at Analysys, told the Securities Daily reporter that Document No. 259 aims to maintain the order of the payment market and protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. To some extent, it is conducive to improving the anti-money laundering supervision system, improving the level of anti-money laundering work, reducing criminal acts such as money laundering, and maintaining financial security.