What is payment sub-account?
Payment split means that after the platform collects money through a certain payment method, it splits each payment according to certain rules, and then settles it separately to different payees. In order to prevent illegal activities such as credit card cash-out, gaming cash-out, money laundering, etc., different payees need to submit certain documents to report for account opening (or called merchants to file), and the business scenario of account splitting is clear and compliant. Payment institutions must Can grasp the ins and outs of funds.
Who can do the payment sub-account?
Payment sub-account is a method of clearing and settlement of funds, which can only be done by payment institutions, including banks and licensed third-party payment institutions. Needless to say, the bank, the third-party payment license is called the "Payment Business License of the People's Republic of China". Offline POS collection and distribution requires the business license of "bank card receipt", and online payment distribution requires "Internet payment". (Scanning a QR code on a mobile phone is also an online payment), and now most of the application scenarios are account sharing for online payment. There are only about 100 payment companies in the country with relevant qualifications, including Internet industry giants such as WeChat, Alipay, JD.com, and Douyin, and only a small half of them have technology research and development capabilities.
Why can only payment institutions do account splitting?
Before there was no "account sharing" product, all the acquiring funds were directly settled to the platform, and then the platform did the account sharing. At this time, there are several core problems: ① the platform may not continue to do separate settlement; ② the efficiency of manual financial processing is extremely low; ③ the platform has to bear unreasonable taxes; ④ under the multi-merchant e-commerce model, the platform cannot realize secured transactions. The first problem is particularly critical. The received funds cannot be fully settled to the platform to form a fund pool, but must be split in the reserve account before settlement. And third-party payment institutions will open an equipment payment account in the central bank (People's Bank of China) as a fund transfer processing account, and accept the supervision of the central bank's capital flow and information flow, which is safe and guaranteed, so they are eligible to split accounts.
Business logic for payment split?
The platform realizes payment collection and account settlement by connecting with the API provided by the payment institution. The money is first received from the payment institution's central bank reserve account, and the payment institution then executes the platform's account splitting instructions. The platform cannot touch the money itself, so it will let qualified organizations do it for it. The whole process consists of two parts: collection + account settlement. The premise of splitting accounts is to first build an account system of main merchants and sub-merchants. The accounts corresponding to WeChat payment are WeChat payment merchant numbers and personal WeChat change, and the corresponding accounts of Alipay are Alipay accounts; while the corresponding accounts of other payment institutions and banks are based on the requirements of the central bank. A virtual account system formed by incoming documents. Account sharing is actually digital transfer within the main and sub-virtual account system.
How are other payment institutions different from WeChat and Alipay?
Since WeChat and Alipay are in a monopoly position, other payment institutions indirectly connect WeChat Pay, Alipay and all banks through UnionPay/NetUnion. It can be understood as working for WeChat, Alipay and banks as their top agents, achieving functional integration and business aggregation through technical means.
Account splitting between WeChat and Alipay is divided into their respective internal accounts: WeChat merchant account, WeChat change, and Alipay account, excluding the link of settlement to the bank. Other payment institutions also split accounts into their respective internal virtual accounts, but since this virtual account has no extensive payment value, it includes a further link from the virtual account to the bank account, which can realize the function of the enterprise wallet. For details, please contact me for a detailed plan comparison.