[This week] is a light reading column created for the mobile payment network, focusing on the hot spots of the mobile payment industry for a week, covering major new technological innovations and application fields. Click on the title to read the original article directly.
At least 1 payment institution withdrew from cross-border e-commerce foreign exchange services
Recently, Liu Bin, Director General of the Current Project Management Department of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, published a signed article entitled "Deepening Reform and Innovation to Promote the Quality and Efficiency of Foreign Exchange Management under the Current Account", which revealed the latest foreign exchange-related policies.
Liu Bin revealed that in 2023, four new banks and payment institutions will carry out cross-border e-commerce foreign exchange services based on transaction electronic information, promoting the continuous expansion of foreign exchange payment business. 22 payment institutions and 17 banks across the country carried out 990 million cross-border e-commerce foreign exchange transactions.
Prior to this, in April 2023, Liu Bin also published a signed article revealing that in 2022, 23 payment institutions and 14 banks handled a total of 970 million foreign exchange settlements in new forms of trade.
This means that at least one of the payment institutions has withdrawn from business, and the number of banks has increased by at least three.
National Work Conference on Combating and Governing Telecommunications Network Fraud
On March 29, a video conference on the national crackdown on telecommunications network fraud was held.
The meeting pointed out that greater efforts should be made to deal with the problem in a comprehensive way. It is necessary to keep a close eye on the financial sector, further promote the governance of the "capital chain" involved in fraud, urge and guide financial institutions to strictly implement the system of "real names and real people", increase the intensity of law enforcement inspections and punishments, and resolutely plug the loopholes of illegal buying, selling, leasing, and lending accounts. It is necessary to keep a close eye on the field of communications, carry out in-depth special actions on "broken cards", focus on rectifying chaos such as indiscriminate issuance of new cards, illegal batch registration of network accounts, and mass sending of fraudulent text messages, deepen the supervision and governance of Internet of Things cards, SMS ports, broadband dedicated lines, access equipment, etc., promote the implementation of real-name systems, blacklists, joint disciplinary action and other systems, and improve technical countermeasures. It is necessary to keep a close eye on the Internet sector, urging Internet enterprises to implement entity responsibility, comprehensively strengthening the governance of the online ecosystem, and organizing and carrying out special rectifications of online black and gray industries involved in fraud.
Here comes the multi-functional free trade account
On 3 April, the Hainan Branch of the People's Bank of China and the Guangdong Branch respectively issued the Measures for the Administration of Multi-functional Free Trade Accounts in the Hainan Free Trade Port and the Measures for the Administration of Multi-functional Free Trade Accounts in the Guangdong-Macao Intensive Cooperation Zone in Hengqin.
Guangzhou: Smooth the acceptance environment of soft and hard wallets for e-RMB
In order to implement the "Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Further Optimizing Payment Services and Improving Payment Convenience" (Guo Ban Fa [2024] No. 10), on March 30, the Guangzhou Municipal People's Government and the Guangdong Branch of the People's Bank of China jointly formulated and issued the "Several Measures for Further Optimizing Payment Services and Improving Payment Convenience in Guangzhou".
The Measures call for enriching the application of new payment methods such as digital yuan. Banks should intensify efforts to expand e-RMB scenarios, enrich the use scenarios of e-RMB for inbound personnel, set up e-RMB hard wallet foreign currency exchange machines in key areas and promote their application, improve the convenience of inbound personnel to use e-RMB, and smooth the acceptance environment for e-RMB soft and hard wallets.
Douyin wants to collect 1.382 billion yuan and have a linkage advantage
On April 3, Hailian Jinhui, an A-share listed company, issued the "Announcement on the Transfer of Equity of Third-level Wholly-owned Subsidiaries". According to the announcement, Hailian Jinhui has signed an "Equity Transfer Agreement" with Tianjin Tongrong E-commerce Co., Ltd., and intends to transfer 100% of the equity of its wholly-owned third-level subsidiary, UMF E-commerce Co., Ltd., to Tianjin Tongrong, with an appraised value of 1.382 billion yuan of all shareholders' equity.
Risk control management system for bank acquirers
Recently, Bank of Shanghai issued the "Announcement on the Solicitation of Suppliers for the Procurement Project of the Risk Control Management System for Acquiring Merchants and the Publicity of Project Procurement Information", inviting suppliers with the copyrights of software products related to the risk control management function in the scenario of acquiring merchants to participate in competitive negotiations.
According to the procurement information, Bank of Shanghai plans to purchase 1 set of risk control management products for acquirers, and in terms of product functions, this set of risk control management products for acquirers is required to include 5 items, including risk control strategy richness, risk control strategy configuration and trial calculation, risk information early warning and verification, risk control index large screen and system management.
The mobile payment network noted that in terms of the richness of risk control strategies, the risk control management products of acquirers need to be able to identify seven risk characteristics, such as cash-out, online gambling, money laundering, pornography, gambling and drugs, transaction changes, surge in order swiping, and code scanning fraud.
Shenzhen International Payment Season released blockbuster results
On April 1, 2024, the launch event of Shenzhen's "International Payment Season" was successfully held in Shenzhen. The following four outcomes were announced:
Outcome 1: WeChat Pay optimizes cross-border experience
Outcome 2: Standardization of cash coin purse
Achievement 3: Innovative achievements of digital currency hard wallets
Achievement 4: Achievements in the construction of convenient payment demonstration business districts
Credit cards have entered the "era of shrinkage"
Since the number of credit cards issued exceeded 100 million in 2021, the number of credit cards issued by China Merchants Bank has now returned to less than 100 million.
According to the 2023 annual report recently released by China Merchants Bank, as of the end of the reporting period, the bank had 97.1181 million credit cards in circulation, a decrease of about 5.6 million, or 5.44%, from 102.7093 million at the end of the previous year, and 69.7404 million credit cards in circulation, a decrease of 0.37% from the end of the previous year. According to the annual report of China Merchants Bank, this is mainly due to its greater focus on high-quality customer acquisition, and the scale of new account acquisition has declined.
Coincidentally, ICBC's credit card issuance has also declined.
According to the 2023 annual report recently released by ICBC, as of the end of the reporting period, the cumulative number of credit cards issued by the bank was 153 million. In the same period last year, the cumulative number of ICBC credit cards issued was 165 million. In contrast, ICBC's credit card issuance decreased by 12 million last year, returning to the level of 2018 as a whole. (Note: In 2018, ICBC issued 151 million credit cards).
WeChat Pay revises password-free terms!
On April 1, 2024, Tenpay Payment Technology Co., Ltd. issued an announcement on the revision of the relevant agreements of WeChat Pay. According to the announcement, in order to better protect the legitimate rights and interests of merchants and consumers, Tenpay will revise the "WeChat Pay Passwordless Service Agreement" (directly connected to merchants) and the "WeChat Pay Passwordless Service Agreement" (second-level merchants on e-commerce platforms). The above amendments will take effect on the 30th day of the expiration of the announcement.
The e-CNY App "Touch" hard wallet collection is online
In recent years, anonymously accessible and easy-to-use digital RMB hard wallets have become popular among overseas visitors to China. However, the limited acceptance scenarios of hard wallets have always been a problem that cannot be ignored.
According to the mobile payment network, in order to effectively solve the pain points of the limited acceptance scenarios of the digital RMB hard wallet and improve the payment experience of overseas people coming to China, the elderly and other hard wallet users, under the guidance of the relevant departments of the People's Bank of China, the Bank of China has formed a plan for the digital RMB App to "touch and touch" the hard wallet to receive money, and took the lead in piloting it in the Shenzhen taxi industry.
It is reported that the e-CNY App accepts hard wallet payments for Android and Apple mobile phones that support NFC function, and the entire payment process only requires two steps: the first step, the driver clicks "Touch" on the homepage of the e-CNY App to enter the amount received, and the second step, the paying passenger uses the hard wallet to "touch" to complete the payment.
Payment institutions are lining up to "sell themselves"
In the past two years, there have been many cases of cancellation of payment licenses.
From August 2015, Zhejiang Yishi became the first payment license to be cancelled, and in the nearly 6 years before 2021, a total of 38 payment licenses have been cancelled, in 2021, 9 payment licenses have been cancelled, 23 in 2022, 15 in 2023, and only 2 in 2024 so far.
A total of 87 payment licenses have been cancelled in 9 years, with an average of nearly 10 cancelled per year.
After the entry into force of the Regulations, payment regulations have become stricter, and the regulatory ownership of prepaid cards is still unclear. It is likely that after the release of the detailed rules, the "turnaround" expected by the market will be disappointed, and more payment licenses will be cancelled in the future. After the promulgation of the "Regulations", the People's Bank of China's rigorous attitude towards the merger and acquisition of payment licenses, more payment institutions may not end up being sold, but cancelled.
Why should we implement the digital yuan?
Since the pilot of the digital yuan for more than three years, the scope and application scenarios of the pilot have been continuously expanding and developing, and ordinary consumers have begun to have a certain understanding of it.
However, as a practitioner, the most frequently asked question about the digital yuan is still "what exactly is the digital yuan, and why is the digital yuan being implemented?"
For the first question, which can be answered very simply, the digital yuan is a digital form of legal tender issued by the People's Bank of China. In addition to being in digital form, the digital yuan has the same value and function as the physical yuan such as paper money and coins. As for the "why", that is the point of this article!
Someone's credit card binding payment software has been stolen
After the trial, the court held that the three transactions involved in the case were completed through a POS machine in Jiangxi Province, and the attendance records showed that Mr. Zhang was in Beijing that day, and he could not carry out the three transactions on the spot. The time of the three transactions was only a few minutes after 10:30 p.m., and the signatures on the three purchase orders were different and difficult to identify, so it is doubtful whether they can represent Mr. Zhang's own consumption. In addition, Mr. Zhang had already reported the case to the public security authorities, but the bank failed to submit evidence to prove that the three transactions were made by Mr. Zhang himself or authorized the transactions, so the court found that the three transactions were fraudulent transactions on the credit card network.
As to the question of who should bear the loss of fraudulent fraud, the court held that the bank had not submitted any evidence to prove that Mr. Zhang was at fault for failing to fulfill his duty of proper custody. After discovering the fraudulent transactions, Mr. Zhang promptly explained the situation to the bank and reported the case to prevent the loss from expanding, and fulfilled his reasonable duty of care and notification. Even after three transactions were included in the repayment bill, repayments were made in an effort to prevent losses from expanding. Compared with individual consumers, banks have the ability to identify and prevent fraud through technical means, and are the main body that can avoid fraud losses at the lowest cost.
Therefore, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Provisions of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Trial of Civil Disputes over Bank Cards on the allocation of the burden of proof and the available evidence, the court found that the losses of the three fraudulent transactions should be borne by the bank, and ruled that Mr. Zhang was not liable for the repayment of the arrears of more than 14,000 yuan involved in the case, and at the same time, the bank returned more than 5,500 yuan that Mr. Zhang had already repaid.
Bank of Hangzhou was fined one million
According to the website of the Beijing Branch of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, the Beijing Branch of Bank of Hangzhou Co., Ltd. was fined 1.0571 million yuan for violating regulations and other issues such as handling foreign exchange settlement business. According to the administrative penalty decision with the document number Jinghui Penalty [2024] No. 3, the illegal facts of Bank of Hangzhou Co., Ltd. Beijing Branch are:
1. Handling foreign exchange settlement business in violation of regulations, 2. Violating foreign exchange registration management regulations, 3. Handling capital account funds receipt and payment in violation of regulations.
In accordance with Articles 47 and 48 of the Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Foreign Exchange Administration (Order No. 532 of the State Council of the People's Republic of China), the Beijing Branch of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange made a penalty decision on the Beijing Branch of Bank of Hangzhou Co., Ltd.: it gave a warning, imposed a fine of RMB 925,000, and confiscated RMB 132,107.56 of illegal gains.
The case involving more than 2 billion cross-border virtual currencies and illegal foreign exchange trading was cracked
A few days ago, the Beijing police and the Beijing Branch of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange jointly cracked a series of cases involving virtual currency, involving more than 2 billion yuan, involving a total of 15 provinces and cities including Beijing, Shanghai, and Zhejiang. It is worth noting that this case is not only a concealed and diverse criminal method, but also a "serial case", from dark web transactions to illegal trading of foreign exchange, which is intricately intertwined.
Beijing police previously received clues that some people used the "dark web" and virtual currency to transmit information and conduct virtual currency transactions, especially the illegal sale of various private information of mainland citizens.
New progress has been made in facilitating payment in China
On April 1, Tencent Fintech announced new progress in facilitating payment in China in three aspects, namely, upgrading and simplifying the WeChat Pay card binding process, supporting a one-stop experience for top-up consumption, and working with overseas local wallets to explore interconnection.
In terms of simplifying the binding of foreign cards for WeChat Pay, foreign friends only need to submit simple information to bind the card, and within a certain amount, tens of millions of merchants in China can conveniently pay. You can also submit further information to upgrade to the full wild card service. Passport review and other links can return results in "seconds" at the earliest.
MAS Amends Payment Services Act
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has amended the Payment Services Act and other related laws to expand the scope of regulation to a wider range of digital payment token (DPT) services, including custody services, DPT transmissions and cross-border fund transfers.
The new rules, which will come into effect on 4 April, are designed to align with global anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) standards, while enhancing user protection and ensuring financial stability.
Canadian payments company Nuvei is acquired
Private equity firm Advent Capital said in a statement on April 1 that it had agreed to acquire Canadian payment technology company Nuvei in an all-cash deal, valuing the latter at $6.3 billion. According to the statement, Nuvei's current CEO, Philip Fayer, will continue to lead the company, and Nuvei will remain headquartered in Montreal.
It is understood that Nuvei was founded in 2003. Nuvei's businesses connect with customers in more than 200 markets, enabling local acquiring in more than 47 markets in 150 currencies and 634 payment methods, providing customers and partners with technology and insights to succeed locally and globally with a single integration.
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