Since 2022, third-party payment institutions have received the first tens of millions of yuan fines. Before and after the Spring Festival, the regulatory authorities continued to increase the penalties for violations of payment institutions, and many fines exceeded one million yuan. In the administrative penalty information announcement recently announced by the Shanghai Branch of the People’s Bank of China, some institutions have received fines of tens of millions of yuan.
4 agencies have already collected more than one million yuan in fines
The Shanghai Branch of the People’s Bank of China announced that Kuaiqian Payment and Clearing Information Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Kuaiqian Payment) was fined 10.04 million yuan for 4 violations and ordered to make corrections within a time limit.
Specifically, the four illegal acts of Kuaiqian Payment involve violating account management regulations; violating clearing management regulations; failing to perform customer identification obligations as required; and trading with unidentified customers. At the same time, the director, CEO and general manager of Kuaiqian Payment were fined RMB 35,000; the assistant vice president of Kuaiqian Payment was fined RMB 85,000.
According to the data, Kuaiqian Payment is one of the first third-party payment institutions in China. It was founded in 2004 and obtained the “Payment Business License” in 2011 with a registered capital of 400 million yuan. At present, Kuaiqian Payment is 100% controlled by Shanghai Wanda Internet Financial Services Co., Ltd. The ultimate beneficiary and suspected actual controller of the company can be traced back to Wang Jianlin. The current license is valid until May 2026, and the business qualifications include Internet payment, mobile phone payment, and national bank card acquiring business.
At the same time, Deshi Co., Ltd. was also fined 4.3 million yuan by the Shanghai Branch of the People’s Bank of China for violating the liquidation management regulations and ordered to make corrections within a time limit. According to the official website, Deshi Co., Ltd. was established on October 25, 2006. It is one of the earliest companies in Shanghai to obtain a third-party payment business license. The main business scope includes prepaid card issuance and acceptance, Internet payment, etc.
It is worth noting that before and after the Spring Festival, supervision continued to impose penalties on payment institutions for violations of regulations. For example, on January 26, the administrative punishment information recently announced by the Business Management Department of the Central Bank (Beijing) showed that Beijing Digital Video Payment Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as: Digital Video Payment) had 6 illegal acts, and was warned and fined a total of 280 10,000 yuan, the then director of digital video payment risk control was fined 150,000 yuan; on the same day, UMF E-Commerce Co., Ltd. committed 6 violations and was fined 6.08 million yuan. The then general manager of UMF E-Commerce Co., Ltd. gave a warning, A fine of 200,000 yuan was imposed.
Judging from the above-mentioned fines, the total amount of fines collected by the four payment institutions before and after the Spring Festival has exceeded 23 million yuan.
“Judging from the violations of the above-mentioned institutions, anti-money laundering is still the focus. Since 2021, in addition to institutional-level penalties, the penalties for responsible persons have also increased, involving key departments such as risk control and operation, indicating that supervision The targeting and accuracy of the payment system are constantly improving.” Wang Pengbo, a senior analyst in the financial industry of Broadcom Consulting, said that from the perspective of the amount and frequency of penalties, the payment supervision around the Spring Festival has the following characteristics: first, the frequency of penalties increases; second, the amount of money is repeatedly broken At a new high, the supervision showed its determination to eradicate chaos through heavy penalties; third, the trend of “double penalty” is significant.
Anti-money laundering supervision continues to upgrade
In fact, anti-money laundering has become a “gathering area” where payment institutions are currently punished. Just taking July last year, when the publicity of punishments was relatively concentrated, as an example, more than 10 payment institutions were punished, and the total amount of fines and confiscated exceeded 40 million yuan. In terms of the types of violations, most of the institutions were fined for anti-money laundering-related reasons.
In terms of policy, efforts in the field of anti-money laundering are being continuously increased. For example, in January 2021, the central bank issued the “Regulations on Non-bank Payment Institutions (Draft for Comment)”; on August 1, 2021, the “Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing of Financial Institutions” will be implemented; in October 2021, the central bank officially The “Notice of the People’s Bank of China on Strengthening the Management of Payment Acceptance Terminals and Related Businesses” was issued. Recently, the “Administrative Measures for Customer Due Diligence of Financial Institutions and Preservation of Customer Identity Information and Transaction Records” issued by the central bank will be officially implemented on March 1, 2022.
With the continuous increase of anti-money laundering efforts, its effect is remarkable. According to the “China Anti-Money Laundering Report 2020”, through strengthening regulatory cooperation, the direct result is that the total amount of anti-money laundering regulatory penalties in 2020 has increased significantly compared with previous years. The data shows that in 2020, the central bank conducted anti-money laundering law enforcement inspections on 614 obligated institutions, of which 87% were legal entities. 537 anti-money laundering violation institutions were punished in accordance with the law, with a fine of 526 million yuan and 1,000 individuals who violated the rules. 24.68 million yuan.
Wang Pengbo said that the focus of future supervision is still in the field of anti-money laundering. He said, “Payment institutions should strengthen monitoring in the field of anti-money laundering, such as establishing a professional anti-money laundering team, enhancing the design and screening capabilities of anti-money laundering systems, and using more technologies methods, and continue to increase effective methods for customer information identification.”
Liu Gang, founder of China Payment Network, suggested that payment institutions should increase their efforts in the following aspects: “First, enhance compliance awareness, establish a basic compliance system, clarify the division of labor and assign responsibilities to people; second, strengthen The level of risk control, flexibly use new technologies to improve the efficiency of compliance work; third, adjust strategies in a timely manner and increase the intensity of work such as inspections of merchants. At the same time, business operators need to establish the concept of ‘compliance first’, and non-compliance is beneficial. We can’t have crooked thoughts, this is beneficial to the company, itself and the society.”
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