The barriers of WeChat, Alipay and UnionPay Cloud QuickPass are gradually "breaking the ice"
-who will benefit the most from payment interconnection
Our reporter Chen Guojing
Recently, WeChat and Alipay successively announced the progress of promoting interconnection with UnionPay Cloud QuickPass.
This indicates that the barriers between payment institutions are gradually "breaking the ice."
At present, Alipay has opened online scenes to UnionPay Cloud QuickPass, covering 85% of Taobao merchants in the first batch.
Alipay staff told the Economic Daily reporter that it is expected that Alipay and UnionPay Cloud QuickPass will realize the mutual recognition of the national collection code scanning code in March next year.
WeChat also issued a statement stating that WeChat Pay and UnionPay Cloud QuickPass have realized mutual recognition and scanning of offline barcodes. UnionPay Cloud QuickPass fully supports the recharge services of Q coins, QQ Music and Tencent Video. WeChat Mini Programs also gradually support Cloud QuickPass. Paid.
Breaking barriers is inevitable
In recent years, there has been a barrier between different payment institutions.
In the past, the QR code payment service market was chaotic. Offline payment services mutually exclusive competitors, and online apps on different platforms are also in a state of fragmentation. Payment services on other platforms are not available.
Nowadays, it is normal to place multiple QR codes at the cashier in shopping malls or restaurants.
"Platform companies naturally have the attribute of winner-takes-all." People's Bank of China Governor Yi Gang said that market monopoly will reduce innovation efficiency. Some domestic platform companies seize the market through cross-subsidy and other methods, and implement exclusive policies after gaining market dominance, such as Competitors are excluded from entering the platform and providing services. The QR code payment business only supports payment by scanning codes for related apps within the technology group.
Fan Yifei, deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, also expressed concern about the chaos in the payment market. “Some payment institutions use unfair competition methods such as low-price dumping and cross-subsidy to seize market share, monopolize users, traffic, and data, and restrict competition from other institutions. If things go on like this, it will not only be detrimental to its own innovation, but will also disrupt market order, suppress industrial innovation, and weaken China's overall leading advantage of electronic payment."
"The division between platforms will result in the division of a series of elements such as information, capital, personnel, and data." Wang Pengbo, a senior analyst in the financial industry of Broadcom Analytics, said that this kind of division gives rise to many problems, such as platform requirements for merchants or users. To make choices, merchants and consumers are faced with a situation of "choosing one of two" or even "choosing one more". This will undoubtedly significantly increase the cost of merchants, disrespect the user's right to choose, and will hinder enterprise innovation.
Fan Yifei cited a set of statistics: The European Union’s R&D expenditures released last year. Among the top 50 global companies, Ali and Tencent ranked 26th and 46th respectively, far below those of Google and Microsoft in the United States.
"Compared with international technology giants, the R&D focus of large-scale technology companies in China is mostly in the application field. Including large financial technology companies, the basic technology innovation is insufficient and the R&D investment is relatively small."
The era of payment interconnection is approaching
With the advent of the era of payment interconnection, it will be inevitable for payment institutions to break down barriers and open up payment interfaces.
"The interconnection of the payment industry is not only a regulatory requirement, but also an inevitable choice for the industry to develop to the current stage." Wang Pengbo believes that the segmentation of the payment industry will not only hinder the innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises and the due reform of the industry, but also increase the circulation cost of the industry. , Contrary to the original intention and original intention of the Internet, we must strive to promote the transformation of the payment industry itself.
"The era of payment interconnection is coming." Analysys senior analyst Su Xiaorui believes that Alipay and WeChat have opened payment scenarios to UnionPay Cloud QuickPass, which means that external payment methods have begun to enter the ecosystem of these "giants", which is helpful To break the payment monopoly and promote full competition in the payment market.
For the direction of interconnection in the payment industry, financial regulators have set the tone.
Fan Yifei emphasized that it is necessary to focus on fair competition and promote the orderly opening of payment interfaces for platform companies. It should not only consider one institution, but should truly open it to all payment institutions. Exclusive and discriminatory payment agreements are strictly prohibited.
In the "FinTech Development Plan (2019-2021)" issued by the Central Bank in September 2019, the central bank has clearly proposed to promote the interconnection of barcode payment, study and formulate technical standards for barcode payment interconnection, and unify barcode payment coding rules and construction Barcode payment interconnection technology system, open up the barriers of barcode payment services, and realize mutual recognition and scanning of barcode identities of different apps and merchants.
Many market analysts believe that the key to the realization of full interconnection in the payment industry depends on the mutual recognition between Alipay and WeChat Pay.
It is only a matter of time before Alipay and WeChat Pay are interconnected. Whether from the determination of regulatory agencies or the operation of commercial infrastructure, interconnection is an irreversible trend.
An opportunity and a challenge
Will the pattern of the payment industry change after interconnection?
Wang Pengbo believes that the industry structure will not change in the short term.
At present, WeChat and Alipay occupy the "big head" in the market, and users have developed usage habits. Coupled with other value-added services provided by each, the existing share of the two payment institutions will not change significantly after interconnection.
In the process of interconnection, payment institutions will inevitably face many new problems.
For example, Wang Pengbo said that after WeChat and Alipay are interconnected, it will obviously affect their respective traffic.
In addition, the problems of data ownership and profit sharing after interconnection need to be clarified. The former determines the status of the industry chain, and the latter determines the upper limit of platform revenue in an era when payment profits are getting meager. These details need to be between payment institutions. To negotiate a settlement.
But for consumers, payment interconnection is obviously a good thing.
"Consumers will have more choices." Su Xiaorui said that now, Alipay and WeChat open payment scenarios to cloud QuickPass, which means that users in the giant's own ecosystem will have more payment options based on their own preferences. , Which in turn forces all kinds of payment entities to do a good job of payment experience and deepen the refined operation of users.
"The great changes in payment brought about by interconnection are both an opportunity and a challenge." Su Xiaorui said, for the payment giants who had previously relied on their dominant position in the industry to develop their business, can the "moat" accumulated over the years continue to attract As with retained customers, the future is also full of uncertainties. For payment institutions, they all need to rethink how to gain a foothold in the market with advanced technology and high-quality services in an environment of full market competition.
"Users will vote with their feet." Wang Pengbo believes that in the long run, payment is still subject to the control of the scene.
The traffic that uses payment as the entrance will gradually diverge, and whoever has more control over the relevant scenes, or has more say in the entire industry chain, consumers will choose who.
Our reporter Chen Guojing