Last credit card recharge
Zhu Xiyan
Mr. Wang decided to spare ten minutes to do something. He took the trouble to verify 20 SMS messages and charged 10000 yuan of cash into his Alipay (Weibo) account with his credit card.
The reason why he did so was that in response to the new regulations of the Central Bank that payment institutions should not provide customers with account overdraft, cash deposit and withdrawal and financing services, Alipay announced that it would close credit card recharge services from February 8.
At the same time, more third-party payment companies began to announce the closure of such businesses.
Call a halt
Mr. Wang is engaged in sales. He often travels on business every year. He buys air tickets online through Alipay. The closure of Alipay's credit card recharging business will bring him inconvenience in large amount payment.
It is understood that Alipay currently provides two channels for credit card online payment: small payment and large payment. All merchants supporting Alipay support micro payment by credit card, but some bank credit cards have certain limits on this, ranging from 300 yuan to 1000 yuan. There is no limit for large amount payment by credit card, but merchants can only open it after being approved by Alipay.
It is reported that the demand of users such as Mr. Wang for the credit card recharging function usually lies in the one-time payment of more than 1000 yuan to businesses that have not opened large payment capacity. Once the function is closed, these ordinary card users who have not opened the professional version will again face the problem of online payment limit.
There are not a few individual users like Mr. Wang. They are used to recharging and then paying with credit cards, which will reduce many trivial authentication during payment and improve the success rate of large amount payment.
Although they can't change Alipay's decision, they can seize this last opportunity to recharge and deal with it for a few months.
However, this did not seem to cause too much abnormality. Alipay told this newspaper that it did not find any obvious change in the recent recharge flow.
"This is not so much a commercial act as a government act," said an industry insider.
On January 5, the Central Bank issued the Administrative Measures for Internet Payment Business of Payment Institutions (Draft for Comments), which stipulates that the real name system shall be applied to the opening of payment accounts. "Customers shall not use credit cards to recharge their payment accounts", and payment institutions shall not provide customers with account overdraft, cash deposit and withdrawal and financing services.
After the announcement of the measure, Alipay issued the above statement of business suspension on January 9. "Alipay is one of the first batch of enterprises to obtain a third-party payment license in China, and also the largest third-party payment enterprise in China, with the greatest pressure," said the above industry insiders. More third-party payment companies have also begun to take action. Recently, Tenpay also said that it is no longer allowed to directly recharge Tenpay with credit cards.
"The original way of recharging and then paying can only be a transition, which is not conducive to the online use of credit cards." Zhu Jian, a public relations officer of Alipay, said that the business is now stopped because it has completed its "historical mission".
influence
On February 3, the official microblog of Alipay announced that "from now on, the single limit of CMB credit card micro payment has been raised from 500 yuan to 2000 yuan, and the daily limit is subject to the limit of the credit card itself; In addition to daily small online purchase, if you want to purchase large amount of goods, you can also choose merchants that support large amount payment by credit card. The credit card payment is basically subject to the credit card's own limit. "
This is contrary to the previous trend of commercial banks to reduce the online payment limit of credit cards. "Online payment by credit card has become a popular habit, and no one will lose a large number of users because of the low quota." A person from the credit card issuing center of a commercial bank predicted that after the credit card recharge was stopped, major commercial banks will modify the online payment function to cater to the change of users' consumption habits, One of the measures is to increase the single amount of third-party payment platform.
Alipay is also trying to facilitate this adjustment. Alipay said that in addition to China Merchants Bank, Alipay also maintained communication with other banks, which does not rule out the possibility that other bank credit cards may also increase the single or daily limit of micro payment.
In addition, according to Alipay, since 2009, Alipay has been communicating and cooperating with major banks, and has reached large payment cooperation agreements with many banks so far. "Tmall on Taobao (T-MALL), some merchants or partners with large transaction volume support large amount payment," said Zhu Jian, a staff member of Alipay's public relations department.
Some people believe that the new regulations will accelerate the process of cooperation. At the same time, the depth and breadth of cooperation with the banking system will become the biggest advantage in the field of third-party payment platforms.
Some sellers are worried that the new regulations will increase transaction costs.
A shop owner from Dongguan on Taobao told the reporter that if his online shop opened the credit card payment function, the buyer would use the credit card to buy the goods in the shop, and the seller would be charged a 1% service charge. To avoid this expense, the seller will persuade the buyer to recharge through Alipay. After the credit card recharge stops, this "detour" method will also become invalid.
At the same time, he is also worried that if credit cards treat payment limits differently, some small and medium-sized businesses will rely more on third-party payment platforms with higher payment limits and more convenient ways. "This makes us have to choose a certain payment platform for cooperation.
