Cash service is a bank duty

  Dong Ximiao

  A few days ago, the People's Bank of China and the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission held a symposium on the work of RMB cash services in banking financial institutions, adhered to the problem orientation, defined work requirements, and emphasized that cash service capabilities and levels should be continuously improved.

At the same time, the central bank announced the penalties for refusing to accept cash in RMB in the fourth quarter of 2021, and imposed economic penalties on 32 units and relevant responsible persons who refused to accept cash in accordance with the law.

  In recent years, with the rapid development of non-cash payment in my country, especially mobile payment, more and more people are accustomed to not carrying RMB cash when going out.

But in economic development and social life, cash still plays an important role.

As of the end of 2021, my country's cash in circulation (M0) reached 9.08 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.7%, maintaining a stable growth momentum for many consecutive years.

Some regions and some groups still have strong demand for the legal use of cash.

More importantly, RMB cash is my country's legal tender.

Maintaining the legal status of the renminbi and ensuring the circulation of the renminbi is a clear requirement of laws and regulations.

  From a practical point of view, it is understandable that online transactions cannot support cash collection and payment in payment and settlement methods due to limited conditions.

However, if more offline institutions refuse to accept renminbi or take discriminatory measures against cash receipts and payments, it will not only affect the normal circulation of renminbi, damage the legal status of renminbi, but also bring inconvenience to people who are accustomed to using cash.

In the past period of time, behaviors such as discriminating against cash, rejecting cash and using bank cards were common in some regions and industries, which were important factors affecting the elderly and other groups in handling related businesses.

In July 2018, the central bank issued an announcement stating that it regulates cash receipts and payments in tourism, catering, retail, transportation and other industries, as well as administrative undertakings, public services and other fields. and other methods to refuse cash.

In November 2020, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Implementation Plan on Effectively Solving the Difficulties of the Elderly in Using Intelligent Technology", emphasizing that the supervision of the payment market should be strengthened, and the rectification and rectification of discriminatory behaviors such as refusing cash and bank card payments should be strengthened.

  However, the phenomenon of refusing to accept cash still occurs from time to time in society, and there are certain problems in the cash service of financial institutions.

A few places push a single non-bank payment product through documents, which brings inconvenience to the masses and is not conducive to building a business environment for fair competition.

Under such circumstances, the financial management department convened a symposium on the work of RMB cash services, timely analyzed new situations, new problems, and new signs and proposed solutions, regularly announced the penalties for rejecting RMB cash, and explored the establishment of a long-term rectification of RMB cash rejections. mechanism, is timely and necessary.

  As the legal currency of our country, RMB is the national business card.

The banking industry is the core of my country's financial industry, and it is the responsibility of the bank to provide high-quality cash services.

Banking financial institutions should raise awareness, not unilaterally pursue the speed of digital technology development, not simply pass on necessary service costs, balance customer needs, operating costs, risk prevention and other relationships, and continuously improve the level and capability of cash services.

In particular, qualified banking financial institutions should retain manual service windows and appropriately provide cash collection and payment services to better meet customers' needs for cash services.

For payment institutions, they should be reasonable and appropriate when promoting mobile payment products and services, and should not use their dominant market position to exclude cash payments.

All sectors of society, especially public service institutions such as water, electricity, gas, and property payment, as well as insurance companies, shopping malls, supermarkets, chain restaurants, medical institutions, parking lots and other units, must take practical measures to actively support the use of cash.

Local governments must strengthen their awareness of compliance, and cannot use administrative power to exclude market competition and forcibly promote the products and services of local payment institutions.

The revision of relevant laws and regulations should be accelerated, the construction of the rule of law in the field of payment and settlement should be improved, the punishment standards for refusing cash and other acts should be raised, and the inspection and disposal of acts such as refusing to accept bank cards should be increased to create a better environment for the public to handle cash business.

  In my country, for a long time to come, multiple payment and settlement methods will continue to coexist.

Therefore, it is necessary to fully respect the public's payment and settlement habits, including the habit of using cash, and let the public choose their own payment and settlement methods.

At the same time, it should be noted that when a commercial bank starts or exits a business, it will make arrangements based on factors such as customer needs, service capabilities and regulatory policies.

For banks that mainly operate in the Internet model, differentiated policies should be implemented in terms of cash collection and payment.

In the next step, the pilot and promotion of digital renminbi should also be accelerated, and some cash collection and payment businesses should be carried out in a digital form, so as to reduce costs and improve the user experience of using cash.

  (The author is the chief researcher of China Merchants Union Finance)