There are reports that a number of universities issued announcements that they stopped using WeChat Pay from July 1 because of the 0.6% handling fee. At present, Northwest University, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Zhoukou Normal University, Zhengzhou University of Light Industry, Zhengzhou Institute of Aeronautical Industry Management, etc. have issued relevant announcements.
The explanation given by WeChat is that since 2015, WeChat Pay has continued to adopt zero-fee preferential policies in non-profit scenarios such as campuses, but due to our lack of refined fee management, as the number of campus scenarios and merchants continues to rise, a large number of profit-making scenarios involving e-commerce, wine and tourism have occupied zero-rate subsidy resources, resulting in rising costs, and the cost of bank channels borne for this has exceeded 1 billion yuan. In this adjustment, only a small number of profitable scenarios such as e-commerce and wine tourism are implemented with preferential rate policies lower than the market average, while campus non-profit scenarios continue to maintain zero rates.
As a national-level application software, WeChat's every move is involved in the whole body, and has a wide impact. In 2014, relying on WeChat Pay, which became popular with New Year's Eve red envelopes, now seems to have become an online payment giant on an equal footing with Alipay, and even because of WeChat's strong social networking and strong use, almost no online payment product in China can overshadow WeChat Pay (that is, Tenpay). Even Cloud QuickPass, which is backed by China UnionPay, has lost in front of the two giants.
Source: Payment and Clearing Association of China
Although the 0.6% handling fee mentioned by WeChat Pay this time is for merchants, compared to Alipay's school business is 0.38% and ordinary business 0.55% handling fee, WeChat can be described as ugly.
Perhaps WeChat does have this confidence, after all, from 2021 to 2022, the survey results of the China Payment and Clearing Association show that the use of WeChat Pay is increasing.
However, WeChat charges merchants, WeChat for individual users, from WeChat Pay to the bank card also need to pay a handling fee, the current rate is 1‰, that is, 1000 yuan of withdrawal, charge a fee of one yuan.
At present, WeChat has not formed a de facto monopoly, for this increase in fees, WeChat This operation is indeed radical, for the other two, if you want to regain the market that was ceased, it is also an opportunity. In particular, CloudQuickPay started late, has the deepest background, and accounts for the smallest proportion.
Now WeChat has apologized and canceled the operation. But who can guarantee that this is not their stone-throwing move? After all, we have experienced that the three companies of iYouteng have increased membership fees, added member-exclusive advertising, and charged on-demand in advance. iQiyi Baidu products, Youku Ali products, Tencent Video Tengxu products. Who knows if Alipay will also take a handling fee later?
There is nothing really free in this world, just like the great rivers and mountains in China are wrapped in a circle of ugly walls, maybe one day the air we breathe, the water source quoted will be circled and charged, just like Da Liu's "The Terminator".