Bills are overdue, and banks urgently need to optimize their systems

Our reporters Hao Yajuan and Zhang Rongwang report from Shanghai and Beijing

In recent months, a number of commercial bank branches have been "impressively listed" in the "Acceptor Overdue List" and "Continuous Overdue List" released by the information disclosure platform of the Shanghai Bills Exchange.

In this regard, a number of banks issued announcements stating that there was no credit risk in the bank's acceptance notes, and the reason for the overdue bills was that the bank system problems led to the failure to respond to prompt payment in time.

According to the provisions of the new generation of bill business system, on the maturity date of the bill (in case of statutory holidays, non-business days of the large-value payment system, and non-business days of the bill business system), the Shanghai Bills Exchange will automatically initiate prompt payment, so it is not possible to make an appointment for prompt payment.

Ren Enlin, a well-known domestic bill comprehensive risk control expert, told the "China Business Daily" reporter that the overdue bank acceptance notes are mainly due to system problems, and the bank personnel are not timely or do not keep enough funds in the account, which will affect the normal development of the bill business. Banks should attach great importance to this, optimize the system architecture, improve the business functions of the system, and better meet the bill financing and settlement needs of corporate customers.

The "juxtaposition" of old and new systems leads to operational negligence

The reporter noticed that some bank branches appeared on the "Acceptor Overdue List", however, the Shanghai Bills Exchange issued an announcement saying that there was no credit risk in the bank's acceptance notes, and the bank also "proved its innocence".

What are the reasons for the overdue bills?

Xiao Xiaohe, executive director of the Jiuyin Bills Research Institute of Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, pointed out that some commercial bank systems may still be designed in the era of paper bills, and the degree of automation of system functions is relatively low, and manual operation errors are prone to occur; a small number of commercial banks have just been connected to the new generation of bill business system of the Shanghai Bills Exchange, and the system is still in the run-in period, and the processing of individual fields or messages still needs to be improved.

This background is that the new generation of bill business system will be the original electronic commercial draft system (ECDS) and China bill trading system (CPES) to achieve a system, a set of interface functions compatible with the whole life cycle business process of paper and electronic bills. At present, banks are also actively putting into operation a new generation of bill business system to achieve docking with the Shanghai Bills Exchange.

According to Zhou Haibin, vice president of Planfin Services, from a technical point of view, the emergence of this phenomenon is mainly due to the ECDS system's need for online manual response from the middle and back office of the bank for the maturity and redemption of undiscounted bills. According to the ECDS technical interface document, after the acceptor of the undiscounted bill maturity receives the prompt payment, it also needs the operator to sign online before the payment. For the discounted bills, the Shanghai Bills Exchange system can automatically initiate collection, and if the acceptor does not sign on the same day, the system will automatically deduct the large amount of system reserves of the accepting bank in the People's Bank of China.

"At present, all types of banks have upgraded and launched a new generation of bill business system, regardless of whether it is discounted bills, the system will automatically respond after receiving the acceptance prompt. However, the 'coexistence period' of ECDS and the new generation of bill business system is until June 30, 2024, because the bank's changes to the rules and technical transformation of the new generation of bill business system have been completed and used, the bills issued by the ECDS system still follow the old rules, and the negligence of the connection between the rules and the operation caused the above situation, rather than subjective factors. Zhou Haibin said.

Optimize the system + strengthen internal control

As an important participant in the bill market, how can banks better adapt to the new generation of bill business system?

Zhou Haibin pointed out that from the system level, in order to solve the problem, the bank must upgrade the automatic signing function of the old system; from the operational point of view, it must arrange a special person to be responsible for the manual response operation of the undiscounted bills due in the old system; from the business level, if the bank continues to be overdue, the Shanghai Bills Exchange will suspend the provision of commercial bill acceptance, discounting and other services.

"In terms of specific operation, banks need to submit an application letter to the Shanghai Bills Exchange as soon as possible. The content of the application letter needs to indicate the expression of intent to apply for the lifting of the continuous overdue status and set out the real reason for the overdue bill. If the overdue bill is caused by the acceptor's own reasons, the relevant supporting documents shall be provided; Send the electronic scanned copies of the application letter and relevant supporting materials to the designated mailbox of the Shanghai Bills Exchange for pre-review. After the pre-examination is passed, the original application materials will be printed and sent to the Shanghai Bills Exchange. After the application is approved, the Shanghai Bills Exchange will resume the relevant bill business functions for the acceptor on the next day, and remove the acceptor from the list of persistent overdue issued in the following month. Zhou Haibin said.

"Banks do not pay much attention to the overdue event of acceptance notes or mishandle it, which may have a negative impact internally, and banks must pay great attention to it. Xiao Xiaohe believes that first of all, it is necessary to firmly establish a system concept, forward-looking thinking about business problems, plan the information system as a whole, and promote the development of bill business as a whole; secondly, to accelerate digital transformation, commercial banks need to actively adopt digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, etc., to continuously optimize business processes, improve service efficiency, and provide customers with efficient and efficient Thirdly, in order to continuously strengthen the construction of risk and internal control system, commercial banks should establish a sound risk and internal control system, and organically combine risk identification, risk monitoring, risk early warning, risk measurement, risk mitigation and risk disposal through the information system, so as to realize the combination of online and offline, and build a systematic, three-dimensional and all-round risk and internal control system.

Overall, Zhou Haibin analysis: "The new generation of bill business system will bring three positive impacts: first, from the perspective of protecting the rights and interests of small and medium-sized enterprises, from the system function level to reduce the financing cost of some small and medium-sized enterprises, if the previous enterprise held 1 million yuan of bills, the funding gap of 100,000 yuan, can only be discounted the entire bill. Now after the bill discount split, the existing enterprises will be significantly more willing to discount the bill; second, from the point of view of the main body of the bill, the previous large bill payment is inconvenient, can not split the payment of multiple suppliers, now after the split payment, the previous unwilling to accept the large bill of the enterprise or will choose to receive the bill payment; third, from the perspective of service sinking, subcontract circulation from the function of expanding the scope of the main body of service bills, such as individual industrial and commercial households, rural contracted business households, etc. ”

(Editor: Zhu Ziyun Review: Xia Xin Proofreader: Zhang Guogang)