Author| Dong Junfeng "Chairman and President of Netlink Company"
Article | China Finance, No. 13-14, 2021
The Netlink platform, which was built in 2016, leads the development of financial technology with party building, is committed to improving payment security and improving payment experience, building a more balanced market ecology, and becoming a key force in maintaining national financial security and stability. After five years of development, the netlink platform has become the world's largest payment clearing body calculated by the number of transactions and the world's largest retail payment clearing body calculated by the transaction amount.
Political piloting helps the industry develop steadily
With the development of economy, society and information technology, China's online payment market has also grown rapidly, and the transaction volume and transaction amount have increased exponentially. However, the ensuing "side effect" is that the risks of illegal liquidation, misappropriation of funds, different standards, and waste of resources in the industry are becoming increasingly prominent, which has also aroused the great concern of the Party Central Committee and the State Council. General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly stressed the need to maintain financial security from the national strategic level, take the initiative to prevent and resolve systemic risks, and strengthen the construction of financial infrastructure and overall supervision. In 2016, the State Council issued an implementation plan for the special rectification of Internet financial risks; the Chinese Bank of China and 14 other ministries and commissions jointly issued a document, which clearly requires payment institutions to carry out inter-bank payment business through the inter-bank clearing system of the People's Bank of China or a clearing institution with legal qualifications. In August of the same year, the preparatory work of the online payment and clearing platform (hereinafter referred to as the "netlink platform") of non-bank payment institutions was launched, and was officially approved by the People's Bank of China on October 20, 2016. Since then, the construction of the network connection platform has begun, and the two major tasks of "disconnected direct connection" and "centralized depository of reserve funds" have also been launched. On August 29, 2017, Netlink was officially established, marking that China's payment market has officially entered a new era.
Netlink adheres to the original intention and mission of "making payment better", and actively implements the work of "disconnecting direct connection": disconnecting the relevant business of direct connection between payment institutions and banks, and replacing them with clearing institutions to connect payment institutions and banks respectively to realize the centralization, transparency and standardization of capital clearing. In January 2019, the network connection platform and the whole industry jointly completed the implementation of the "disconnected direct connection" policy. By the end of 2020, the netlink platform has connected nearly 4,000 commercial banks and rural financial institutions and all payment institutions holding online payment licenses, realizing the five basic functions of fast payment, payment, gateway payment, commercial entrusted payment, and certified payment, and comprehensively meeting market demand. At the same time, Netlink implements the policy of centralized depository of reserve funds of payment institutions, realizes the comprehensive support of 100% centralized depository of all business types, and launches the functions of verification of reserve information verification and risk monitoring of reserve funds to ensure the accurate and safe liquidation of customer reserves. In the first quarter of 2021, the average daily processing business was nearly 1.5 billion, with an amount of more than one trillion yuan. The construction and operation of the network connection platform has ensured the sustained and healthy development of the online payment market, and the chaos of Internet finance has been curbed, which can be called a successful practice of the People's Bank of China in winning the battle to prevent and resolve major risks.
After the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic in 2020, Netlink Company made every effort to ensure the continuity of personnel, business and service in the prevention and control of the epidemic. In order to help the "six stability" and "six guarantees" work tasks, Netlink Company has formulated a series of policies to bail out and benefit enterprises. During the epidemic period, the business handling fees of merchants in Hubei were reduced or waived, and the bar code collection and settlement payment business of non-profit medical institutions and charities across the country was exempted from online connection fees; the green service channel for epidemic prevention was quickly opened, more than 2 million epidemic-related transactions were coordinated and processed, and a "highway" for the remittance of epidemic prevention funds was built; the "contactless" online scan code payment was innovatively promoted, covering more than 20 types of taxes such as value-added tax and consumption tax, and taxpayers could complete "contactless" tax payment online without leaving home. The risk of on-site cross-infection and the potential risk of infection in contact with physical equipment are avoided, which is conducive to the prevention and control of the epidemic in the public payment scenario.
At present, the payment market is in a period of rapid development and change, netlink companies will start from the strategic height of building new advantages in national competition, adhere to the development and security, deeply understand the new situation and new requirements of industry development, adhere to the financial infrastructure has the industry public service attributes, and actively promote the payment market entities to recognize and participate in the network business authority coordination, fairly share important resources such as business, channels, and technology, so that users can enjoy high standards and high-quality services without discrimination; curb the "Matthew effect" of the strong Hengqiang. Guide payment institutions to return to the origin of payment, effectively maintain the market order of fair competition, prevent platform monopoly and unfair competition, and avoid disorderly expansion of capital.
Science and technology is the first to create a benchmark for networking technology
Under the guidance of the People's Bank of China, The company has worked hard with more than 200 experts from more than 30 payment institutions to adopt a distributed cloud computing architecture system and build a high-level network connection platform in accordance with the principle of "co-construction, co-ownership and sharing". The achievements of the technology construction of the network platform have been fully affirmed by academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and many technical experts in the financial industry, and won the only special prize of the 2019 Banking Science and Technology Development Award, which has set a new benchmark for the development of science and technology in the industry.
In the process of platform construction, Netlink pioneered the technical architecture of "multi-point and multi-active deployment of three places and six centers", based on the five-layer disaster recovery system of application, database, network, data center and city, to achieve city-level disaster recovery capacity and machine room fault minute-level isolation ability. According to the innovative concept of "spatial dimension" and "time dimension" distribution, the netlink platform has more than 250,000 transaction peak processing capacity and 20,000 reserve withdrawal peak processing capacity of 20,000 transactions per second and 20,000 transactions/s through the distributed processing of transactions and the discretization configuration of accounts, and the hourly reconciliation and single-day multi-field liquidation design can support 1 billion daily processing tasks. The massive data monitoring platform independently developed by Netlink Company has the ability to detect second-level faults in high concurrency scenarios, and uses distributed multi-computer room parallel processing technology to build a multi-dimensional three-dimensional monitoring system that comprehensively covers banks, payment institutions and the network platform itself, realizing the rapid and accurate location and rapid disposal of full-link faults in the whole network and minimizing the impact of failures.
After the platform was built, Netlink has always regarded business continuity as a "lifeline". The Netlink platform maintains efficient and stable operation, smoothly supports online commercial promotions such as "Double Eleven" and "Spring Festival Red Envelopes" in recent years and the peak of important time points in the industry, achieving a system success rate of 100%, a platform availability rate of 100%, a capital liquidation accuracy rate of 100%, a capital liquidation timeliness rate of 100%, a maximum concurrent transaction volume of more than 93,500 transactions per second, and a single-day transaction peak size of more than 2 billion. In addition to ensuring the smooth operation of the netlink platform itself, netlink has also established for the first time an industry-level joint operation and maintenance mechanism with the clearing institution as the center and comprehensive coverage of the main body of the network payment market, creating a service platform covering various scenarios such as the improvement of the operation and maintenance capabilities of member institutions, emergency response linkage, daily self-service processing, etc., effectively increasing the system stability and production and operation quality of member institutions, promoting the reduction of the number of exceptions year by year, and ensuring the success rate of the whole network and full-link system. Optimize the platform architecture, enhance the automatic isolation and self-healing ability of the system, improve the operation and maintenance analysis and automated operation and maintenance capabilities, and build a two-layer analysis framework of "operation and maintenance event and operation and maintenance management" to reduce operational risks. Comprehensively promote the construction of normalized peak guarantee tools, realize one-click, automation, and interface of operation tools such as trading, clearing, and reconciliation, and support system pages to automatically display various types of data at peak time points to reduce manual operation errors. Carry out independent research and selection, introduce domestic servers, carry out adaptation research and application pilots, enhance the ability to respond to external changes, and build a solid foundation for national financial security.
Paying for the People to Bridge the "Digital Divide"
Netlink Company has always adhered to the leadership of the party, closely focused on the fundamental position of taking the people as the center, solved the people's difficulties, and done what the people want. In order to allow rural users to enjoy the dividends of network payment development, Netlink Company continued to increase investment in rural services, continuously expand the rural mobile payment network, and help alleviate poverty and revitalize rural areas. In 2020, the netlink platform handled an average of 94.59 million online payment transactions and 40.9 billion yuan per day of agriculture-related financial institutions, an increase of 44% and 27% respectively year-on-year, of which the transaction volume and transaction amount of village and township banks increased by 42% and 90% respectively compared with 2019. At the same time, the network connection company accelerated the sinking of network payment to rural areas, continued to expand the network coverage of rural areas, accumulated access to more than 3300 rural financial institutions, and the coverage rate of rural financial institutions in the country was nearly 90%, providing basic conditions and basic guarantees for solving the "last kilometer" problem of payment in rural areas, and providing strong support for consumer poverty alleviation and industrial poverty alleviation.
In order to bridge the "digital divide" between urban and rural areas, Netlink is committed to the normalization of online payment knowledge popularization and exchange, assisting rural financial institutions to achieve financial technology transformation, and effectively guiding the implementation of payment business and services in rural areas. Promote more than 20 key rural financial institutions to launch multiple reconciliation functions, significantly improve the timeliness of abnormal transactions and accounting processing of rural financial institutions, and improve the payment experience of users in rural areas. Promote the integration of urban and rural resources between industries, and improve the layout of rural network payment. Let the people in rural areas enjoy the same financial services as urban residents without leaving their homes.
Netlink has always stood in the perspective of the whole industry, with the purpose of smoothing the people's livelihood and convergence road, practicing the principle of inclusive finance, and is committed to improving the coverage, availability and convenience of payment services. Actively promote interconnection and complete the full function of bar code payment interconnection and interconnection. Build an industry sharing barcode acceptance environment, carry out pilot projects in Chengdu, Hangzhou and other places, and lead the industry to form an open, diversified, innovative and growing business development community. Vigorously promote the tax payment business of the national treasury, successfully support the first annual settlement and payment of individual income tax, and improve the level of tax payment service facilitation. Explore cross-border business development, promote cross-border use of e-wallets, and support market entities to carry out cross-border payment business in compliance. In order to help the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the high-level opening up, the Netlink platform has been approved for the pilot project of wild card inbound business, so that the platform can enhance the ability of cross-border retail payment exhibition industry, which is conducive to supporting the prosperity and development of new formats of global service trade. In order to further implement the financial opening policy, Netlink actively promotes joint venture cooperation with MasterCard. In February 2020, the People's Bank of China and the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission reviewed and approved the application for the preparation of bank card clearing institutions submitted by Wanshi Wanglian Information Technology Company.
Guard the people's money bags against risks
With the responsibility of effectively supporting the rectification of Internet financial risks, Netlink Company resolutely implements the major decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee, the State Council and the Party Committee of the People's Bank of China, strictly abides by various regulatory regulations, and effectively protects the safety of the people's funds.
The netlink platform actively embraces regulatory technology, builds a risk control system characterized by automation, intelligence and digitalization, and introduces technical tools such as big data and machine learning to help implement regulatory policies in the payment field. Cooperate with regulatory authorities to carry out monitoring of the flow of reserve funds, identify risks such as misappropriation of funds and fraudulent transactions, and track abnormal suspicious transactions. In 2020, the Netlink platform submitted more than 260 reserve fund risk monitoring reports to the People's Bank of China and more than 2,200 pieces of risk information to 19 central branches of the People's Bank of China; by the end of 2020, the scale of suspected illegal transactions monitored by the Netlink platform had decreased by 6.8% year-on-year, and the transaction scale of transfers to the suspected P2P platform had dropped by 73.5% compared with the beginning of the year. Efficiently undertake the construction of customer reserve and liquidation margin management system, help the People's Bank of China to strengthen the centralized management of customer reserve funds, and improve the industry risk protection mechanism. The network connection platform focuses on identifying new types of online violations and crimes to establish a monitoring model system, coordinates with all parties to maintain a closed-loop mechanism for risk disposal, prevents the cross-institutional flow of criminal funds, and supports the supervision of cross-border online gambling classes and telecommunications fraud governance. In 2020, the netlink platform monitored and found more than 64,000 high-risk suspicious clues related to gambling and fraud, completed more than 28,000 clue investigations, supervised the closure of more than 16,000 suspicious merchants and accounts, and traced 760,000 related party transaction information in the capital chain, accurately cracking down on cross-border gambling and telecommunications fraud. According to statistics, the data application of the network connection side has prompted the entire network to pay gambling and fraud transactions down 46.7% year-on-year. At the same time, the network connection platform cooperates with government departments and industry self-regulatory organizations to establish a joint prevention and control mechanism, enhance the ability of matching and traceability of the capital chain of the whole network, and strengthen the crackdown on cross-network criminal activities. In 2020, the netlink platform provided 5,536 online and offline data surveys to regulators and relevant departments, and cooperated with the Payment and Clearing Association to identify more than 5,000 "unlicensed" risk enterprises, making positive contributions to standardizing online business behavior and maintaining the order of online transactions.
Netlink gives full play to the advantages of neutrality and centrality, strengthens data security and personal information protection while expanding data applications, standardizes data collection, authorization and use, and further enhances data empowerment and data governance capabilities. The core system of the network connection platform is all self-developed, and all systems have passed the highest level of security level assessment in the financial industry of the Ministry of Public Security. At present, the network connection platform has built a data security management system including data encryption desensitization, tokenization, permission grading, operation audit, etc., which can effectively resist network attacks and make it "unable to enter, take away, not understand, can not change, can not run". Establish the safety concept of "everyone is the first line of defense", establish a safety cooperation mechanism and a security emergency response framework, and clarify safety responsibilities. Gradually promote the simultaneous planning, synchronous construction, and synchronous use of information system construction and security technical measures, continue to carry out the reinforcement of host security, certification centers and other capabilities, and prevent the underlying failure risk of equipment and encryption machines. Comprehensively inventory data assets, clarify the responsibilities of data producers, exchange managers and users, clarify data classification and classification, ensure cross-business and cross-system data consistency, focus on data security and personal privacy protection, and continuously reduce data security risks and compliance risks.
The integration of party building business forges a strong team
As a national financial infrastructure, Netlink has always placed political construction in a prominent position, and promoted the responsibility of party building and production and operation in the same direction. Give full play to the exemplary role of party members as pioneers, create "pioneer + meritorious service" characteristic party building brand activities, and drive party organizations and party members to take action.
Combined with the annual key peak support tasks such as "Double Eleven", with Communist Party members and youth league members as the backbone forces, the theme practice activity of "peak guarantee as a pioneer" was carried out. Formulate a "party member collective merit plan", with the party group as the unit, with the party member as the backbone, based on the company's operation and management plan and strategic planning, focusing on the company's business priorities and technical difficulties, focusing on the construction of the safety system, business innovation, internal management and other aspects, and encouraging party members to take the initiative and take on practical work.
Establish and improve the mechanism for selecting and appointing cadres, strengthen the assessment and management of leading cadres at all levels, and enable cadres' political attainment, theoretical level, professional ability, and practical ability to keep up with the times and the pace of enterprise development. Implement the strategy of strengthening enterprises with talents, smooth the development channels of employees, establish a diversified employee growth ladder, and ensure that people and posts match and make full use of their talents.
A hundred years of original intention, long-lasting. Standing at the historical intersection of "two hundred years", the grand blueprint for the new era has been rolled out. In the face of future opportunities and challenges, Netlink will bear in mind the purpose of "payment for the people" and continuously broaden the payment development path of "integrity, safety, inclusiveness and openness". ■
(Editor-in-Charge Zhang Lin)