On April 29, the Beijing Branch of the People's Bank of China issued the "Announcement on Carrying out the Cleanup of Sleeping Central Bank Deposit Accounts in the First Quarter of 2024", stating that in accordance with the "Measures for the Management of Deposit Accounts of Central Banks" (Yin Fa [2023] No. 127) on the regular cleaning of dormant accounts, the Beijing Branch of the People's Bank of China will carry out cleanup of the central bank deposit accounts that meet the requirements of dormant account cleanup within its jurisdiction.
According to the rules, the central bank deposit accounts opened in the central bank's accounting data centralized system, which have not been received and paid for two years other than interest settlement and deduction account service fees, and have not existed for legitimate reasons, will be liquidated. According to the announcement, in the first quarter of 2024, the list of liquidated is a "former" payment institution whose license has been cancelled - Beijing Guangjufu Payment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Guangjufu Payment").
In terms of the time limit for liquidation, the unit that opened the deposit account of the central bank (i.e., Guangjufu Payment) shall, within 30 days from the date of issuance of the announcement, go to the Beijing branch of the People's Bank of China with the relevant supporting documents to go through the procedures for closing the account. If the account is not closed within the time limit, the business outlets of the People's Bank of China have the right to deal with the account accordingly, and the account will be managed according to the "long-term undrawn".
It is worth noting that the Hebei Branch of the People's Bank of China also issued the "Announcement on Carrying out the Cleanup of the Deposit Accounts of the Central Bank of Hebei Province", which cleaned up 37 central bank deposit accounts at one time, including the deposit account of Yujia Payment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Yujia Payment"), which is also a "former" payment institution.
Founded in July 2008, Guangjufu Pay was originally a payment institution specializing in the issuance and acceptance of prepaid cards, and the brand of prepaid cards issued was "universal consumption card". The main business of Guangjufu Payment involves the design, issuance, settlement, merchant channel management, market expansion and online mall operation of prepaid stored-value cards.
In 2012, Guangjufu Pay obtained a payment license and was allowed to carry out prepaid card issuance and acceptance business, with business scope in Beijing and Shanghai. In June 2022, the People's Bank of China (PBoC) announced the renewal of the Payment Business License for non-bank payment institutions (the fourth batch in June 2022), showing that 10 payment institutions did not renew their applications because they did not submit renewal applications, including Guangjufu Pay.
Earlier, in September 2020, Royal Pay decided to terminate the issuance and acceptance of prepaid cards, and took the initiative to apply for cancellation of the payment license.
Under the combined effect of multiple factors such as compliance pressure, policy factors and market environment, the actual operating conditions of prepaid card issuing and accepting payment institutions have been declining for many years. This is especially true for establishments that only operate in certain geographies, which is a common problem faced by this segment of the payment sector. In recent years, the People's Bank of China (PBoC) has deliberately guided the removal of some payment institutions, and a large number of prepaid card issuers and acceptance institutions with geographical business restrictions have always been the main targets of the liquidation.
After withdrawing from the payment business and canceling the payment license, the deposit account opened with the central bank will naturally need to be dealt with.
In March 2021, the Measures for the Depository of Customer Reserves of Non-bank Payment Institutions came into effect, which stipulates that customer reserves directly received for the issuance of prepaid cards or the recharge of prepaid cards shall be deposited into the centralized depository account for reserves through the special deposit account for prepaid card reserves.
The Measures for the Administration of Deposit Accounts of Central Banks issued by the People's Bank of China (PBoC) in July 2023 require its branches to organize local financial institutions and non-bank payment institutions within their jurisdictions to do a good job in related work.
The central bank deposit account refers to the liability account opened by the People's Bank of China for the account opening institution for the deposit of funds. According to the different purposes of the accounts and the nature of the funds, the central bank deposit accounts can be divided into two types: reserve deposit accounts and special deposit accounts. Among them, special deposit accounts are divided into financial deposit accounts, special deposit accounts, centralized depository accounts for reserves, settlement accounts, special business accounts and other special accounts.
Account opening institutions also include non-bank payment institutions that have obtained the Payment Business License. The centralized depository account for reserves is a central bank account opened by a payment institution for depositing customer reserves.
In the subsequent Notice of the General Office of the People's Bank of China on the Implementation of the Measures for the Administration of Deposit Accounts of the Central Bank (Yin Ban Fa [2023] No. 108), there are detailed relevant provisions on the cancellation of central accounts.
For these "former" payment institutions, although the cancellation of the payment license is not the same as the cancellation of the company, many institutions have begun to dissolve the company after the cancellation of the license, and some companies have completed the cancellation, and some are still in the process of deregistration. For example, Jinjiang International Business Co., Ltd., Xiamen Xiangyu Payment Co., Ltd., Anhui Baijiahui Payment Co., Ltd., CITS (Beijing) Information Technology Co., Ltd., etc.
Of course, the premise of a resolution to dissolve a company is to declare creditor's rights. The mobile payment network also noticed that among the institutions that have not yet been deregistered, there are also many who have been included in the list of abnormal operations, become judgment debtors or dishonest judgment debtors, in short, the business situation is worrying. For example, the central bank's deposit account was cleaned up Guangjufu Payment and Yujia Payment. From this point of view, it may be a better outcome to be able to successfully deregister the company's organization.