Chen Xian now works in a company in Beijing. Prior to this, he had been working for a third-party online payment company in Shanghai. According to him, this payment company is mainly engaged in B2C payment platform, which is well-known among corporate customers and is regarded as the payment company with the largest transaction volume in the industry. However, unlike other electronic payment companies keen on hype, this company is extremely low-key, and it is difficult for outsiders to understand its situation in public channels.
In the eyes of many competitors, this company is "getting rich quietly". According to Chen Xian, before he left the company, the daily transaction volume on the company's payment platform could reach 1 100 million yuan, which was regarded as "customer deposit funds" in the payment industry, which also meant that the money lying in the payment company's account every day exceeded 6,543.8 billion yuan, but the company's profit source was not the transaction fee, but the bank's money.
Because the transaction fee negotiated between each customer and the company is different, Chen Xian can't work out a clear figure, but he said with great certainty: "The average transaction fee ratio will not exceed 0.5%." If only from the perspective of business operation, this ratio is doomed to be a loss in Chen Xian's view, and such a rate is difficult to support the operation of a payment company.
The company's way of making money is mainly bank interest, which is completely different from ordinary deposit interest. The company's payment platform has established an interface with the online banking system of almost all commercial banks, and all kinds of bank cards can be used for payment transactions. However, during Chen Xian's two years in office, the company had only one bank, and it was a relatively small commercial bank.
In fact, according to Chen Xian, almost all payment companies "only look for small banks to open accounts". At present, deposit and loan business is still the main profit source of domestic commercial banks, but people still tend to deposit in several major state-owned commercial banks and some relatively high-quality joint-stock commercial banks. The deposit business of many small and medium-sized commercial banks has been struggling. For the deposit and loan business of commercial banks, insufficient deposits often lead to difficulties in the subsequent loan business. For these small and medium-sized commercial banks, the daily transaction volume of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of yuan by large payment companies is undoubtedly a huge deposit business. "If the operation forms a virtuous circle, the deposit of funds is quite stable for the customers of the payment company," Chen Xian further revealed. "Several major state-owned commercial banks may not care about this capital situation, but small banks have to pay attention to it."
On the other hand, it does not violate the relevant regulations that "customer deposit funds" can stay in the payment company account for one day. Because of this, many payment companies will "talk to these small and medium-sized commercial banks with the transaction details in their hands", among which talking about interest rates with banks is an "absolute focus". Chen Xian once played such a role: first talk to Huaxia Bank, then turn around and run to Industrial Bank, then talk one by one, and finally choose the bank with the highest interest rate. In this process, Chen Xian has a sense of satisfaction: "Every bank is bidding, and the decision is in our hands."
Compared with the annual interest rate of 0.72% of ordinary bank deposits, the final negotiation result is several times higher than this figure, which also means that banks are not only difficult to make money in electronic payment, but also have to post it to payment companies, and the so-called handling fees shared by intermediate banks are only symbolic fees. But this does not mean that these banks will suffer. Some senior people said that the bank is using these "customer deposit funds" for other business operations, and the price negotiated with the payment company has been comprehensively calculated. In terms of business, it is unlikely that banks will lose money. At the level of payment companies, this has become the most important source of profit for most payment companies. Chen Xian once calculated that even if online transactions are completely free, payment companies can win huge profits.
Source: Netease
The electronic payment industry chain market is hot and the prospect is unpredictable.
Entered by: Li Na Date of publication: 2005- 1 1-7 From: IT manager's worldview 555 times.
The electronic payment industry chain market is hot and the prospect is unpredictable-> There is a download here.
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The activity of electronic payment enterprises represents the huge demand for digital payment. "You can pay if you have a mobile phone", "You can receive payment if you have a mailbox" and "I dare to spend money if you dare to use it" ... This year, the payment problem suddenly became a powerful market opportunity.
Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba, announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos at the beginning of this year: "2005 will be the year of safe payment for e-commerce in China." Half a year later, on July 1 1, PayPal, the world's largest electronic payment company, entered China with high profile and set up its first14th localized website "PayPal" in Shanghai, directly confronting Alipay and Ma Yun's Taobao. There are 654.38 billion netizens, 350 million mobile phone users and 800 million bank cards. In 2005, the upsurge led by electronic payment enterprises swept the domestic e-commerce community.
The slogan "You can receive payment by email" was brought to China by PayPal. PayPal was established at the end of 1998. It binds users' credit card accounts with their e-mail addresses, so that online users can receive and pay money safely and conveniently through e-mail addresses. PayPal quickly quit, landed on Nasdaq more than a year later, and was acquired by Yi Bei in 2002 for1500 million dollars. At present, PayPal has 78.9 million users in 56 countries around the world, and the total payment processed in the second quarter of 2005 reached 6.5 billion US dollars.
At the same time, a large number of various payment companies have emerged rapidly in China, such as Shanghai Kuaiqian Company, which is similar to Paypal mode, Shanghai smartpay Company, which focuses on mobile payment, and Beijing Yeepay Company, which has made a comeback after three years of efforts. For a time, the payment company with the suffix "payment" was dazzling.
hegemony
Electronic payment is not a new concept. From 1998, China Merchants Bank took the lead in launching online banking, and people began to contact online payment, mobile banking and online transactions. At this stage, banks are undoubtedly the dominant force in online payment, but how to expand the participation of small and medium-sized merchants in different industries in online transactions is not the strength of banks, and banks themselves do not have enough motivation to develop business outside their main business.
So non-bank enterprises began to intervene in the field of payment. Beijing Shouxin, Shanghai Huanxun, Online Banking and many other service providers with strong banking interface technologies provide online payment channels on the basis of the unified platform and interface provided by the basic payment layer of the bank, just like a patch panel, connecting the front and rear merchants and banks respectively, and getting a share through the second settlement with the bank. This payment gateway model is the most mature in China at present. "But the future value of this model will be smaller and smaller. It is just a channel, not a platform. It is impossible to tailor the service according to the needs of the merchants. " People in the industry are worried about this. "Once merchants and banks are directly connected, this model is the easiest to be abandoned because of the low added value."
Many people think that the problem of channel payment companies is that the concept of "users" is not strong, and large e-commerce companies with huge user groups, such as Yi Bei, Taobao and HC, have built their own payment platforms and pushed the payment model to the second stage. Long before PayPal entered China, on June 5438+ 10, 2004, Yi Bei launched its honest payment tool "Anfutong" in conjunction with a number of financial institutions. Taobao launched Alipay as early as 2003 and set up a special payment company to operate it. Both Alipay and PayPal put forward the slogan "If you dare to use it, I will dare to pay for it" to fully compensate the buyers and sellers. The essence of this model is to use the payment company as a credit intermediary to temporarily keep the payment on behalf of the buyer and the seller until the buyer confirms the receipt of the goods. This kind of guarantee can control the transaction risk of buyers and sellers, solve the security problems in the transaction, and easily form the loyalty of consumers. However, whether it is PayPal or Alipay, as a payment platform, serving the main business of the parent company is its top priority, and its development also depends on the scale of the parent company platform. "For us, whether the customer uses PayPal or other payment tools, as long as he is willing to trade on Yi Bei." Liao Guangyu admits the mission of PayPal. Although both PayPal and Alipay said that their payment platforms are open to all customers, due to the sensitivity of transaction information, the payment platform controlled by an e-commerce company is unlikely to be adopted by other peers.
It is not surprising that a large number of independent third-party payment companies have emerged. There is a third-party advance payment model, that is, the payment company advances funds for the buyer, or companies such as 99bill and Yeepay set up virtual accounts. Through the accounts opened by the buyers and sellers on the trading platform, online transaction payment is completed with virtual funds as the medium (of course, these virtual funds are also recharged in RMB), so that payment transactions are only circulated in the payment platform system.
In terms of payment means, domestic third-party electronic payment companies have formed a combination of online payment, telephone payment and mobile payment. Users can choose to pay by calling a fixed telephone, debit card or SMS.
Complex concurrency
Although there are various modes and means of domestic payment companies, in fact, electronic payment companies are only a link in the industrial chain, and there are many participants in the electronic payment industry, involving banks, customers, merchants, system developers, electronic payment platform service providers, digital authentication service providers and so on.
"China Mobile has Monternet. We should take the YeePay platform as the support and the service suitable for users as the entry point to pull in banks and merchants to form Monternet. " YeePay CEO Tang Bin said with a smile. But in Monternet's chain, do banks also occupy a position similar to that of mobile operators?
"The position of banks in the electronic payment chain is irreplaceable." The tone of Zhang Yaolin, vice president of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, is beyond doubt. At present or for a long time in the future, in the process of online payment, the payment business engaged by non-bank enterprise payment companies is finally completed through the bank's payment gateway and settled by the bank. In fact, the competition between payment companies is first reflected in the competition with banks. Whether it can form close cooperation with major commercial banks and whether it can negotiate the lowest price with banks has become the primary means for payment companies to compete.
But the relationship between payment companies and banks is not just cooperation. When banks directly connect with merchants without any third-party payment companies, third-party payment companies will face strong competition from banks. "At present, banks are still in the stage of staking land, and the main income of commercial banks comes from the difference between deposits and loans. When online payment becomes an important source of income for banks, banks will come to grab merchants. " An insider of a commercial bank commented like this.
For mobile payment companies, the system docking between mobile operators and commercial banks will also cause the value of third-party payment companies to shrink. "As far as mobile payment is concerned, Korean telecom operators cooperate directly with banks. If the market is large enough, imagine that once the back-office business systems of China Mobile and China Industrial and Commercial Bank are directly connected, any third-party payment company will cease to exist. " Guan Guoguang, CEO of Shanghai Fast Money Company, said this.
But the fact is that not all companies can directly connect with banks except big merchants, and it is impossible for a bank to meet customers' consumption demand for various bank cards. Therefore, there is still room to unite a number of banks and expand the third-party payment platform of a number of merchants. Although PayPal and Alipay rely on the strong parent company background to sharpen their swords in the domestic market, independent third-party companies seem unmoved. "Our tentacles can reach where they can't."
All links in the electronic payment industry chain, such as third-party payment companies, banks and merchants, cooperate and compete with each other, but each link has a contractual relationship, forming a complex contract group, only at different stages of industrial development, each link has different negotiation weights.
Survive in the cracks
Although in theory, if banks and merchants are directly connected, many companies providing payment channels will have a bleak future. But "our space lies in doing things that banks can't do or don't have time to do." Wang Xu, president of Shouxin Company, said that there are still great opportunities for market segmentation.
"The convenience business run by the bank, such as paying utilities, has been calculated, and the service bank that receives a person will lose money from 2 yuan." Wang Xu believes that although the payment of public utilities is scattered and complicated, it brings many opportunities to payment companies. In Shanghai, people can pay water, coal and electricity bills by sending short messages through the payment platform of Jieyin Company.
The main business of Shouxin Company also comes from the personal business of government departments, such as education fees. Since the Ministry of Education canceled the counter transaction, the phenomenon of long queues for entrance examination registration fees is gone forever. At present, the postgraduate registration in Beijing can be registered online through Shouxin E-Pay. Last year, 20% of Shouxin Company's income came from education fees. Community e-commerce is also the future development direction of Shouxin Company. Community e-commerce allows people to enjoy more than 60 community services, such as door-to-door service, home appliance repair, small piece handling, etc. 160 just by making a phone call.
Digital products are also an important field for payment companies to compete. For example, game cards, telecom prepaid cards, network cards and other products are most suitable for online payment because the products themselves have no entity and the transactions are real-time. In 2004, among the revenues of Shanghai Huanxun, Shouxin and UnionPay electronic payment companies, the revenue from counting banknotes with game cards accounted for 40%, and the latter two also reached 30%. However, Wang Yun, Shanghai Kuaiqian and Beijing Yifutong, which started to formally operate payment platforms this year, all take digital products as an important field of active expansion. In addition to game cards, the emerging online game virtual goods transaction has also begun to enter the vision of various payment companies. Yi Bei and Taobao have set up virtual trading zones. At present, IGE China, the largest virtual commodity trading company in the United States, is also discussing cooperation with Alipay. Once the cooperation is successful, the transaction volume of IGE will account for110 of Alipay.
For mobile payment, an independent wireless Internet portal has become their new goal. "At present, the wireless Internet portal or mobile phone mall lacks payment channels after the transaction is completed. This market is very big. " Shen Guowei, CEO of Shanghai Jieyin Company, said that he is currently talking about cooperation with some WAP portals. "Many SP companies talk to us about cooperation in mobile payment because they feel that they used to rely too much on mobile operators, with many bad debts and high costs. But through the banking network, the cost is very low and the service is more in place. So three years later, Monternet is competing with Monternet to some extent, which is normal and should happen. " YeePay CEO Tang Bin said.
The emergence and growth of a large number of third-party payment companies will also have a revolutionary impact on the payment of air tickets-based tourism industry, digital publishing industry and distance education industry. "In the future, people will pay a small amount of fees, such as taxi fares and parking fees. As long as they recharge their mobile phone numbers, they don't have to bring cash and bank cards. " Shen Guowei, CEO of Shanghai Jieyin, said that Jieyin will adhere to the road of "payment by mobile phone".