Many banks curb points arbitrage credit card fleece is difficult to gather-e-commerce-payment / financial technology

It seems that it is getting harder and harder to “wrap the wool” through a credit card. On July 20, according to incomplete statistics from a reporter from Beijing Commercial Daily, since last year, many banks have successively adjusted their credit card points rules. Specifically, it mainly involves restricting the accumulation of points for offline transactions, adding merchants that do not accumulate points, and broadening the channels for online points. Recently, Postal Savings Bank of China issued an announcement to adjust credit card points rules, announcing that the first three digits of the acquirer’s merchant code are 822, 823, 829, 831, 834, 836, 847, 848, 849, and 857 that no more points will be accumulated.

At the same time, Postal Savings Bank of China also added 89 merchants that do not accumulate points, and it is clear that it will set a customer’s single-month cumulative limit of points at 10 times the customer’s credit limit, and new points that exceed this limit will not be counted in the customer’s points account. In fact, as early as last year, the bank made it clear that the first three digits of the acquirer’s merchant code were 850, 833, 900, 890, 887, 843, 826, 864, and 801 no longer accumulate points.

With the exception of Postal Savings Bank, according to incomplete statistics from Beijing Business Daily, since last year, many banks including Ping An Bank, China CITIC Bank, China Minsheng Bank, China Guangfa Bank, Huaxia Bank, China Everbright Bank, and Industrial Bank have successively continued. Adjust the credit card points rules.

Among them, Minsheng Bank, China Everbright Bank, Huaxia Bank, and Industrial Bank have cancelled the accumulation of transaction points accepted by some third-party payment institutions, and the overlap of merchant codes is relatively high. Minsheng Bank, China Everbright Bank, and Hua Xia Bank have made it clear that the first three digits of the merchant code of the acquirer are 801, 822, 823, 826, 829, 831, 833, 834, 836, 843, 847, 848, 849, 850, 857, 864, 887, 890, 900 will no longer accumulate points. The Industrial Bank cancelled accumulative points for third-party payment institutions whose acquirer numbers were 823, 829, 834, 848, and 900.

Dong Zheng, a senior credit card researcher, said that for banks, points need to be invested in costs, so the amount of points should be adjusted with the bank’s income. In the past two years, bank credit cards have faced bad debts and overdue pressure, so some of the credit rights have been restricted. At the same time, the adjustment of credit card points rules is also to reduce potential risks and curb false transactions such as cashing out and set of points.

Credit card points contain many rights, and gift redemption is one of them. However, in recent years, some cardholders have used this right to make points arbitrage. And this kind of points arbitrage often occurs in offline POS card swiping transactions. The operation method is generally to frequently swipe the card through merchants with lower rates to obtain credit card points, and then use the points to redeem gifts, consumer vouchers, airline miles, etc., so as to spend on their own Or resell.

A reporter from Beijing Business Daily inquired about Xianyu App and found that many sellers used “new” and “genuine products” as gimmicks to resell the gifts redeemed by credit card points. Some sellers posted information about the redemption products online, asking if anyone needed to resell them. Products include kitchen utensils, household appliances, luggage, cosmetics and so on.

While restricting the transaction points of some third-party payment institutions and merchants, some banks have also broadened the channels for online points. For example, the Industrial Bank credit card points business rules adjustment announcement mentioned that customers use WeChat Pay (tenpay), Alipay, JD Pay, Meituan Pay, Suning Pay, Xiaomi Pay, Pinduoduo Pay, Vipshop Pay All online transactions of Dingxingye Credit Card accumulate points. Hua Xia Bank added JD Pay, Suning Pay, and Meituan Pay to accumulate points for network transactions, and the accumulative rules for WeChat (tenpay) and Alipay remain unchanged.

Dong Zheng believes that online payment is relatively difficult compared to offline payment cashing, because the payer and the payee do not have a complete one-to-one relationship, and they are relatively safer. “In the future, it is expected that the move to increase the accumulated points of online payment will continue. Online payment loops are small, the proportion of real transactions is high, and the future growth of online consumption can be expected, so it is deeply favored by banks.”

Su Xiaorui, a senior observer in the banking industry, analyzed that the participants in the online payment cooperation chain cover three types of roles: banks, third-party payment institutions, and e-commerce platforms. Banks, as financial institutions, try to improve banks by digging into online scenarios. The frequency of card consumption and user activity are also in line with the general direction of digital transformation of banking institutions.