Alipay, WeChat Pay, etc. have realized mutual recognition and scanning with UnionPay——
Speeding up the process of interconnection in the payment industry
Our reporter Chen Guojing
In the recent period, the interconnection of the payment industry has entered a period of acceleration.
Recently, Alipay and China UnionPay have realized mutual recognition of payment code scanning across the country.
In addition, Alipay has achieved mutual recognition of offline code scanning with 28 banking institutions.
This process is faster than market expectations.
Alipay and China UnionPay began to conduct close communication and exploration based on the bar code interconnection business in 2020, and have successively realized mutual recognition of receiving code scanning codes in Beijing, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Chongqing, Xi'an and other cities.
At present, Alipay and China UnionPay have realized mutual recognition of collection code scanning across the country.
Recently, many consumers have discovered that they can also pay by scanning Alipay's QR code with the bank's APP.
According to the person in charge of Alipay, Alipay and China UnionPay have recently promoted the completion of 28 banks and institutions including ICBC, China Construction Bank, Bank of China, Bank of Communications, China Merchants Bank, CITIC, China Guangfa Bank, and Mi Pay. Consumers can use various banks and cloud flash Pay and other institutions’ APP scans the Alipay payment code to realize the payment.
Not just Alipay. Recently, WeChat Pay also announced that it has realized mutual recognition and scanning of offline barcodes with UnionPay Cloud QuickPass. UnionPay Cloud QuickPass fully supports the top-up services of Q coins, QQ Music and Tencent Video, and WeChat applets are gradually Support cloud QuickPass payment.
From online to offline, the speed of "breaking the ice" of barriers between payment institutions is accelerating.
Previously, the QR code payment service market was chaotic, offline payment services mutually exclusive of competitors, and online apps on different platforms are also in a state of fragmentation.
In this regard, the Governor of the People’s Bank of China Yi Gang once said that market monopoly will reduce innovation efficiency. Some domestic platform companies seize the market through cross-subsidy and other methods. After gaining market dominance, they will implement exclusive policies, such as exclusion of competitors from entering the platform and providing services. , QR code payment service only supports related APP scan code payment within the technology group.
"The division of 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 time, it has expanded from online interconnection to offline scenarios. Said to be the last leap-forward attempt at interconnection.
However, in the opinion of industry experts, payment interconnection is still unfinished.
Dong Ximiao, chief researcher of China Merchants Union Finance, said that interconnection is not just about two organizations opening up their respective scenes to each other through communication and negotiation.
Real interconnection means that all payment institutions and payment tools, especially large platforms, open payment interfaces, truly open to all payment institutions and payment tools, and strictly prohibit exclusive and discriminatory payment agreements.
Therefore, there is still a long way to go for interconnection in the payment field.
For the direction of interconnection in the payment industry, financial regulators have previously set the tone.
Fan Yifei, deputy governor of the central bank, 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 truly open it to all payment institutions. Exclusive and discriminatory payment agreements are strictly prohibited.
At present, the acceleration of payment interconnection will make the payment industry face new opportunities and challenges.
Wang Pengbo believes that in the age of industrial Internet, for most payment institutions, it is difficult to meet the requirements for further business development with simple payment services. Ecology and product services, improving their ability to serve merchants and consumers, will gradually become the key to further breakthroughs in payment institutions' business.