Alipay and WeChat Pay seem to have occupied the payment scene you can imagine.
However, a British third-party payment company named "World No. 1" wants to start business in China and "take food" from these two local giants!
▲ Picture source: Photo Network (picture and text have nothing to do)
On May 2, a reporter from the Daily Economic News (WeChat: nbdnews) learned from a relevant person in the central bank that the People's Bank of China has received a letter from World First Company (Chinese translation of "World First") about applying for a payment business license.
This means that since the central bank loosened the access restrictions on foreign-invested payment institutions at the end of March, there has been the first foreign investor to try it out.
The reporter noticed that on April 11, the Governor of the Central Bank, Yi Gang, talked about the opening-up measures of my country's financial industry at the Boao Forum for Asia. In less than a month, foreign businessmen in various fields such as payment, credit reporting, and securities companies have submitted applications, hoping to enter the Chinese market.
According to the China Securities Journal, Experian Credit Information (Beijing) Co., Ltd. submitted a filing application to the Business Management Department of the People's Bank of China on May 2 to conduct corporate credit reporting business in China. The company is a subsidiary of British Experian in China.
On the same day, according to Xinhua News Agency, UBS officially submitted an application to the China Securities Regulatory Commission, becoming the first foreign institution to apply for the establishment of a holding securities company in mainland China.
Relaxation of access restrictions for foreign-invested payment institutions
Daily Economic News (WeChat: nbdnews) reporter noticed that the People's Bank of China Announcement [2018] No. 7 issued at the end of March clarified the access and supervision policies for foreign-invested payment institutions, and welcomes and encourages foreign-funded institutions to participate in China's payment service market. development and competition.
As China significantly eases market access, including in the financial sector, foreign investors are becoming more motivated to participate in the Chinese market.
According to public information, World First was born in the United Kingdom in 2004. At the beginning of its establishment, it engaged in currency exchange, and then gradually developed a payment business.
The official website of World First has a Chinese page, and has launched RMB settlement services for cross-border e-commerce.
Daily Economic News (WeChat: nbdnews) reporter noticed that in the past year or two, China has gradually loosened market access restrictions for bank card clearing institutions and non-bank payment institutions, and relaxed the restrictions on foreign financial service companies to provide credit rating services. Restrictions and national treatment for foreign-invested credit reporting agencies.
According to the Announcement No. 7, the conditions that a foreign-funded institution should meet to apply for a payment business license mainly include:
(1) Commercial presence: An overseas institution shall establish a foreign-invested enterprise in China as the subject of applying for a payment business license.
(2) Payment business facilities: A foreign-invested payment institution shall have a safe and standardized business system and a disaster recovery system within the country that can independently complete payment business processing.
(3) Information storage requirements: foreign-invested payment institutions shall abide by the laws of the People's Republic of China, and personal information and financial information collected and generated within the territory shall be stored within the territory.
In addition to meeting the above conditions, foreign-invested payment institutions should also meet the requirements of capital strength, major contributors, and anti-money laundering measures stipulated in the Measures for the Administration of Payment Services of Non-Financial Institutions.
The corporate governance, daily operations, risk management, fund handling, deposit of reserve funds, emergency arrangements, etc. of foreign-invested payment institutions shall comply with the regulatory requirements of the People's Bank of China on non-bank payment institutions.
Announcement No. 7 also clarifies that foreign and domestic payment institutions must abide by the same regulations, achieve unified access standards and regulatory requirements, create a fair market competition environment, and continuously expand financial opening to the outside world. This means that foreign institutions entering China's payment market will enjoy "national treatment".
The financial industry continues to expand and open up
According to public information, World First has obtained a 3A2 corporate business credit rating from Dun and Bradstreet.
World First entered China in 2010 to provide payment and foreign exchange settlement services on international e-commerce platforms, providing e-commerce sellers with collection services in US dollars, euros, pounds, yen, Canadian dollars and Australian dollars. At present, more than 20,000 Chinese cross-border e-commerce sellers are using World First's services, and the annual transaction flow in the world exceeds 1 billion US dollars.
▲ Picture source: Photo Network (picture and text have nothing to do)
Among the foreign-funded institutions, PayPal (a wholly-owned subsidiary of eBay) is also in the same industry as World First. At the end of last year, the person in charge of PayPal appeared at the 6th China Payment and Clearing Forum. At this forum, Fan Yifei, deputy governor of the central bank, put forward the principle of comprehensive opening up, implemented the pre-entry national treatment plus negative list management system, greatly relaxed market access, and promoted the further optimization of my country's payment service market structure.
The reporter noticed that as early as April 2015, the State Council issued the "Decision on Implementing the Access Management of Bank Card Clearing Institutions", approving the opening of the bank card clearing market, which attracted the attention of Visa and MasterCard. ) and American Express and others are ready to participate in the Chinese market.
On May 2 this year, the RMB Cross-border Payment System (CIPS) (Phase II) was fully put into operation, extending the system's external service hours, covering financial markets in all time zones around the world, and supporting same-day settlement. This also objectively helps domestic and foreign payment institutions to develop cross-border payment business.
However, it may not be easy for foreign investors to gain a share of the highly concentrated Chinese payment market.
According to a report by iResearch, in the first quarter of 2018, Alipay and Tenpay accounted for 90.6% of the market share of third-party mobile payment transactions in China.
Original address: http://www.360jieli.com/article.php?id=326
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