On February 22, the China Payment and Clearing Association, WeChat Pay, and Alipay issued separate announcements in response to the previous Chinese Min bank's relevant regulations on personal collection codes.
Summarizing the responses of all parties, the current "personal collection code" is not closed, non-stop, and the function remains unchanged, and the "personal operation collection code" is launched for small and micro merchants and other groups that use personal collection codes, and users voluntarily apply for it.
This response originated from the Notice of Chinese Min bank on Strengthening the Management of Payment Acceptance Terminals and Related Businesses (Yinfa [2021] No. 259) (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice") published on the official website of the Central Bank of China on October 13, 2021. The Notice stipulates that for individuals with obvious characteristics of business activities, bar code payment and collection service institutions shall provide them with special merchant collection bar codes, and refer to the implementation of relevant management regulations of special merchants, and must not provide them with collection services related to business activities through personal collection bar codes.
The relevant regulations were originally intended to reduce the risk of personal collection barcodes being used by criminals, but they "mistakenly injured" many small and micro merchants. After the "Notice" was introduced, the relevant provisions were misread by netizens as "WeChat and Alipay collection codes cannot be used for business collections", and even rumors were rumored to trace the income and expenditure of personal collection codes in the past four years to recover taxes.
Since the outbreak of the epidemic, the "stall economy" has risen, and many mobile stall owners have used personal collection codes to collect money in their operations, and the provisions of the Notice and subsequent rumors have made them worry: Can their business continue? Will subsequent operating costs rise? With the announcements of the China Payment and Clearing Association, WeChat Pay, and Alipay, small and micro merchants have eaten a "reassuring pill".
However, in several confrontations between rumors and rumors, the anxiety of small and micro merchants has not been alleviated. Some bank staff told alphabet lists that there has been a significant increase in the number of inquiries received from small businesses in the public sector recently. In addition, some criminals have targeted this part of the population and designed related scams such as agency and upgrading collection codes.
A
On November 26 last year, the news that "WeChat Alipay collection code cannot be used for business collection" rushed to Weibo's hot search, the source of the news was the "Notice of Chinese Min Bank on Strengthening the Management of Payment Acceptance Terminals and Related Businesses (Yinfa [2021] No. 259)" issued by the central bank's official website on October 13, 2021. Immediately after that, on November 27, some media and experts debunked the news, calling the relevant statement a "title party" and a misreading of the central bank's notice.
But market sentiment has been ignited. On the day of the news, the stock prices of listed third-party payment companies in the market rose accordingly, with Lacala (300773) rising more than 15% in early trading and moving card (9923.HK) rising more than 16% intraday.
The news spread rapidly through WeChat groups and other channels, and other rumors were derived, such as on February 16, the Weibo topic "WeChat Alipay responded to track down personal collection code data for the past 4 years" rushed to the hot search. It is reported that WeChat and Alipay will trace the personal collection code data in the past four years and recover relevant taxes, and WeChat and Alipay officials will immediately debunk rumors. Tencent customer service also added rumor-busting related information in its recent reply.
The wide spread of rumors has brought anxiety to small and micro merchants, so that some institutions have found business opportunities, and many intermediaries with agency business licenses have begun to promote their own businesses. From the market feedback at that time, the provision was interpreted as guiding Alipay, WeChat Pay to change the original model, which is conducive to strengthening the role of digital yuan in the field of payment, and banks have begun to promote their aggregate collection codes and digital yuan collection codes, and recently there have been employees of CCB Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of Communications, Pudong Development Bank, Changsha Bank and other banks, who have posted articles in the circle of friends to promote their respective aggregate collection codes.
There are also criminals who have targeted large and small micro merchants and carried out fraud in the name of agency and upgrading collection codes. In its official announcement on February 22, WeChat Pay reminded users that "if there are relevant personnel to promote, please beware of fraud."
Since October last year, the central bank's notice has rippled layer by layer, which has triggered several confrontations between rumors and rumors in the field of public opinion, until February 22, when it was announced with the official announcement. Among them, the China Payment and Clearing Association announced that the current "personal collection code" is not closed, does not stop, and the function remains unchanged. WeChat Pay said that after March 1, 2022, combined with the user's collection situation, it will successively issue invitations through WeChat collection assistant message notifications and other means, and provide personal operation collection codes if the user voluntarily. Alipay said that after March 1, 2022, Alipay's personal collection code can continue to be used, enjoying a series of existing services, including free withdrawals; from March 1, Alipay's personal collection code can be upgraded to a personal business collection code.
B
In fact, it is not difficult to see from a careful reading of the Notice that the provisions are aimed at "the receipt bar code is leased, lent, sold or used for illegal activities", rather than normal business activities; what is prohibited is that "personal static collection bar code is used for remote non-face-to-face collection", rather than business collection. The rumors clearly misunderstand and exaggerate the facts.
However, the rumor-mongers have taken advantage of the fact that most netizens do not go to the official website documents and do not understand the relevant terms of the payment industry to create and spread rumors, which has triggered a series of market changes.
According to the 48th Statistical Report on the Development of China's Internet Network released by the China Internet Network Information Center, as of June 2021, the number of online payment users in China reached 872 million.
According to data, the current offline scan code payment market includes three major ways of merchant code, personal code and third-party aggregate payment provided by the giant, and the annual scale of the scan code payment market is about 40-50 trillion yuan, of which the aggregate payment is about 15 trillion yuan.
Involving hundreds of millions of people, tens of trillions of transactions, the change of payment tools involves the whole body, which also means that the policy formulation involving payment tools will be relatively cautious, more gradually, rather than one-size-fits-all: huge amounts of funds are precipitated on WeChat, Alipay and other platforms, and once deactivated, it is likely to trigger a chain reaction in the market.
In fact, from the perspective of the relevant person in charge of the central bank, the use of personal collection codes for merchant collection confuses the nature of transactions, affects the effect of risk monitoring, is not conducive to the use of payment services to empower value-added for business activities, and there are multiple risks such as using the "running sub-platform" to hide illegal uses such as gambling in daily transaction scenarios. The so-called "running points" is to use the personal collection code to collect money for others, and then earn commissions. The "running sub-platform" is actually an online payment platform engaged in illegal acts such as overseas fraud, gambling, pornography, and money laundering.
On 21 February, Chinese Bank also issued an announcement stating that the Administrative Measures for Customer Due Diligence and Customer Identity Information and Transaction Records of Financial Institutions (Order [2022] No. 1 of the China Securities Regulatory Commission of the Chinese Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission) originally scheduled for implementation on 1 March 2022 has been suspended for technical reasons.
The "Measures" were disclosed on January 26, and once they were released, they triggered heated discussions and were once on the hot search. Public opinion mainly focused on the provisions of the Measures that "individual deposits and withdrawals of more than 50,000 yuan shall be registered from March 1", the purpose of which is mainly to prevent and curb money laundering and terrorist financing activities.
In fact, cracking down on all kinds of online and offline money laundering and fraud has become a long-term goal of the central bank's policies. The above provisions have been suspended for technical reasons, but this does not mean that they will not be implemented in the future.
In the future, with the advancement of policies, the transaction scenarios that may hide illegal activities such as money laundering fraud will tend to be standardized, and this payment code storm is not aimed at the rice bowl of small and micro merchants, but to strengthen industry management, cut off illegal chains, and better protect the safety of individual industrial and commercial households.