How do you make money from the aggregation payment companies that face the central bank’s rectification?

The "two clear" mode of playing the ball is not working. Is there any way to make money?

Recently, a number of local provincial and municipal regulatory agencies have requested to rectify the notification documents for the illegal aggregate payment. The document specifies the location of the aggregate payment, and a detailed list of 32 aggregate payment companies is attached.

According to reports, on the eve of the Spring Festival, the central bank's head office unified the arrangement of the "Notice on the implementation of illegal" aggregate payment "service cleanup and rectification work." According to the Notice, some of the acquiring institutions and aggregation technology service providers have recently connected to the acquiring institutions in the big business mode during the relevant business development process, opening the payment accounts in violation of regulations and substantively conducting the qualification review of the special merchants. , accepting agreements, signing funds settlement, and acquiring business transactions.

Positioning the “acquisition outsourcing agency” and strictly playing the “two clear” mode

According to reports, the Notice made the positioning of the aggregate payment as “acquisition outsourcing agency” and proposed four strictly prohibited acts:

It is not allowed to engage in core business such as merchant qualification review, acceptance agreement signing, fund settlement, receipt transaction processing, risk monitoring, master terminal generation and management of acceptance terminals (network payment interface), errors and dispute handling;

It is not possible to settle the funds in any form by special merchants, and engage in or disguise the settlement of special merchant funds;

Do not forge, tamper with or conceal transaction information;

Sensitive information of merchants and consumers must not be collected or retained.

The "Notice" requires that the mapping work be completed before February 28, 2017; the illegal organization will be rectified before March 31, 2017, and the unreformed institution will be included in the scope of special rectification of the unlicensed business payment business.

Since last year, with the rise of various third-party payment tools, the traditional merchant's cash register system has evolved from the original credit card POS machine to scanning code guns and Taiwanese cards, but if the merchants want to apply for or dock so many third-party payment institutions at the same time, The required procedures are cumbersome and costly, and there is a pain point.

Therefore, "aggregate payment" is generated. The aggregate payment is between the third-party payment and the merchant, also known as the "four-party aggregate payment". With the payment channel and clearing ability of the bank, non-bank institution or clearing organization, Integrate the payment services of various third-party payment platforms or clearing organizations, and also customize according to the needs of merchants, providing merchants with but not limited to "payment channel services", "collection reconciliation services", "technical docking services", Service content such as “member account service” to reduce the cost of merchant access and maintenance of payment and settlement services. The front is close, the 哆 宝, and the money is all this type of business.

The location of the aggregate payment in the chain

Aggregate payment companies generally do not pay license licenses and do not liquidate funds. However, some aggregating payment companies have no license to operate the above two types of business, unlicensed business card card receipt core business and unlicensed operation network payment business, the so-called "two clear." Some aggregation payment companies first receive the money on their own platform and then transfer it to the merchant. This involves the precipitation of funds, which is a non-compliance business. Once the platform “runs the road”, the security of the merchant’s funds is dangerous. A central banker told reporters that if it is purely technical integration, it does not involve the precipitation of funds and sensitive information of customers, it is a relatively standardized aggregate payment.

The profit margin of the rebate is meager, and what profit is it?

Although the basic aggregation payment service is the basic business of these enterprises, in fact, the rate of the aggregation payment institution is meager and the profit margin is very limited. The third-party payment institution will charge a few thousandths of the rate from the merchant, and the aggregation payment institution will then charge a fraction of the rate. With such meager rates and fierce competition, it is impossible to make money by relying on such basic services. There are 32 aggregate payment companies listed in the Central Bank Notice, and Caixin even says that there are hundreds of similar companies.

The meager profit of basic services may explain why some institutions risked the “Second Clearance” service, but after all, they belonged to “unlicensed operation”. Before the formal reorganization of the regulatory payment, the industry already knew that similar models were risky. In October 2013, Tenpay was arrested or ordered to rectify by the central bank because of its cooperation with third-party companies such as Shenzhen Weicunde Technology Co., Ltd.

But obviously, even for many compliant fourth-party aggregators, it is impossible to rely on the collection of rebates to make a profit. Their business logic is similar to that of companies such as Alipay. Payment is also just a traffic portal. Making money depends on other value-added services or financial services. At present, the main ideas include launching consumer-oriented installment services in cooperation with consumer finance companies, providing SaaS software, membership system management, marketing systems, or launching merchant-oriented financial services for merchants.

One of the representatives of the LaSabao SaaS service model, its founder and CEO Chang Dawei has introduced to Yiou, the idea of ​​the company is based on the SaaS service model of "open payment platform", covering store operations, store cashier and CRM 8 major technical interfaces (APIs) such as membership management.

Ping Yi founder and CEO Jin Yiye said last year that the payment of aggregate payment mainly depends on software fees and transaction fees in the form of SDK access and SaaS software services. Therefore, many aggregation payment companies are also exploring the provision of more value-added services to make a profit.

According to reports, Wuhan's broom launched a payment advertising business at the end of 2015, turning payment traffic into advertising revenue, hoping to reduce revenue dependence on merchant transaction fees and software service fees. Qianfang is also launching the “Smart Business Circle” in the same year. It is based on the metropolitan office business circle and provides geographic location-based marketing services for merchants in the business circle through big data precipitation and analysis.

In addition, according to the report of this website last year, the aggregate payment Ping + + launched an aggregation stage, through cooperation with consumer finance platforms such as installment music, quantitative parties, Miqinjin clothing, etc., to help merchants solve consumer demand for installment payments, and to traditional The difficulty of financial institutions applying for loans. Partners are responsible for reviewing risk control and online credit, and avoiding compliance risks. Similarly, Payra not only provides payment tools, but also provides financial services such as account management, supply chain finance, investment and wealth management, and custody financial systems to startups, docking financial institutions, providing product libraries, connecting incubators and even VCs.

Aggregate payment has already entered the second half. From the stage of getting customers to thinking about how to make profit, for these aggregate payment companies that have begun to explore value-added services, perhaps the remediation will not have much impact on them. The current focus is still How to serve the merchants and how to make money from them.