Third-party payment is included in the anti-money laundering third-party payment frequency touch money laundering red line

The third-party payment institution will be formally included in the scope of the responsible party of the Measures for the Administration of Large-Scale Transactions and Suspicious Transaction Reports of Financial Institutions (hereinafter referred to as the “Measures”).

The reporter learned yesterday (November 8) from the people close to the Central Bank Anti-Money Laundering Bureau that the new version of the "Measures" will be officially introduced soon. It is worth noting that, compared with the existing regulations, the new "Measures" will include third-party payment institutions. Scope of application.

It is understood that the "Measures" is still in the stage of soliciting comments, but some of them have already been exposed. In the standard of reporting of large-value transactions, the starting point of the amount is reduced from the current single-day or cumulative transaction of 200,000 yuan to 50,000 yuan. The above-mentioned people close to the central bank's anti-money laundering bureau told reporters that this is only a version of the commentary, and ultimately it is still uncertain. However, some financial institutions believe that it is necessary to lower the starting point of reporting standards.

● The new version of the "Measures" applies to third-party payment institutions

"The last step is to go through a procedure. If there is no accident, it should be very soon (promulgated)." The person close to the central bank's anti-money laundering bureau said that it has already sought advice from major institutions. This is a necessary procedure. It is understood that some organizations have put forward a lot of technical opinions, and these opinions have been absorbed as much as possible in the process of formulating the Measures, so that they can operate and implement them. As for the final clause of the "Measures," "I have not confirmed yet, the president has not signed."

The reporter learned that the "Measures" will formally include non-bank payment institutions in the scope of application. Although there are no non-bank payment institutions in the “Measures”, many third-party payment institutions have told the “Daily Economic News” reporter that in fact, third-party payment agencies have been carrying out anti-money laundering work.

An internal person from CICC told reporters that the agency has a system of anti-money laundering and anti-fraud, which has been running for a long time. "Before I entered the company, the company was doing this work."

It is worth noting that Alipay obtained a third-party payment license in 2011, and before that it has started implementing anti-money laundering. The reporter learned from Alipay, a person responsible for paying for security. As early as 2010, the agency set up an anti-money laundering team. "The team is now close to 100 people." In the operation of anti-money laundering, Alipay stores the full amount of customer account transaction data on the ladder 2, which is a massive data storage computing cluster composed of more than 1600 machines. The anti-money laundering data platform is installed on the ladder 2, which deploys anti-money laundering rules and models to generate suspicious data.

The reporter was informed that this platform has sent a number of suspicious reports to the central bank's anti-money laundering department. Typically, it has detected a case of selling illegal medicated drugs through the Internet.

The above-mentioned people close to the central bank's anti-money laundering bureau also said that the participation of non-banking payment agencies in anti-money laundering has always been clear, but this time it was unified when the "Measures" were updated.

Regarding the inclusion of non-bank payment institutions in the scope of anti-money laundering responsibility, a person in charge of a large state-owned commercial bank branch told reporters, "This is very sensible."

The person in charge believes that this is necessary, and physical outlets and network electronic channels should be included. He further analyzed that the use of third-party payment services by consumers has become widespread, which also gives criminals the opportunity to “take in it for monitoring.”

In order to maintain the security of online transactions, the regulatory layer constantly adds third-party payment real-name authentication. However, since July 1, the central bank has issued a new network payment schedule for non-bank payment institutions, which has been implemented for more than half a month. Some institutions have still failed to carry out real-name certification and rectification in accordance with the new regulations. At the same time, the first batch of 27 third-party payment company licenses have expired for more than 2 months and have not received the renewal notice. According to industry analysis, the pressure on the renewal of the brand means that the regulatory layer is really moving towards network security. Implementing the real-name system policy to promote anti-money laundering work has become a hurdle that third-party payment development is difficult to bypass.

Third-party payment frequency touch money laundering red line

In recent years, with the rapid development of third-party payment, money laundering cases such as underground money houses, online gambling, financial fraud, smuggling and drug trafficking hidden in online transactions have emerged one after another. In the first half of 2015, Ant Financial submitted more than 300 copies of suspicious transaction reports to the Anti-Money Laundering Monitoring and Analysis Center. In 2015, the nation's largest online gambling 116 project involved nearly 5,000 billion yuan in gambling in the province. Most of its funds were transferred through third-party payment platforms, underground banks, and overseas online banks. In April of this year, CCTV exposed some POS machines of third-party payment platforms into telecom fraud money laundering tools. In addition, relevant UN data show that at least $300 million a day globally is bleached through electronic banknote-free transactions.

In order to combat the increasingly rampant criminal activities of money laundering, the central bank requested that third-party payment institutions strictly implement the real-name certification system from July 1. The new regulations have been implemented for more than half a month, and there are still violations. On July 10, lawyer Wang Yujia reported that WeChat paid unrealized real-name certification, unimplemented quota rules and failed to verify according to relevant transactions. On July 14, the central bank replied that it had received the WeChat payment report and was investigating and verifying the report. It is reported that third-party payment has the characteristics of non-face-to-face, concealment, extensiveness and rapid transfer of funds. If the real-name system of accounts cannot be effectively implemented, the source and destination of funds are difficult to track, and it is easy to become a money laundering channel for criminals.

In July, the first batch of 27 financial institutions that received third-party payment had expired and had not received the renewal notice for 2 months. The second batch of licenses will expire in August. There is no clear statement on the reasons for the renewal of the license renewal. However, among the 27 third-party payment companies waiting to be renewed, Remittance World and Tonglian Payment were fined 350,000 yuan and 1.015 million yuan respectively for violating anti-money laundering regulations. Since April this year, the central bank has issued a number of payment industry management documents, especially the "Non-bank payment institution classification rating management measures", anti-money laundering into the focus of inspection. This time, the third-party payment institution has not been informed of the renewal of the license. Perhaps it is the regulatory authorities who are strictly testing the attitude of third-party payment of anti-money laundering.

Before the implementation of the “Administrative Measures for Network Payment Services of Non-Bank Payment Institutions”, the flow of funds from third-party payment for transfer was difficult to monitor, and the central bank had to manage it. The newly implemented "Measures" stipulate that payment institutions need to take measures such as suspected fraud, cash, money laundering, illegal financing, terrorist financing, etc., and timely take measures such as investigation and verification, delay settlement, and termination of services. The "Measures" make the third-party payment company's business return to "small amount of convenient payment", which is intended to protect the safety of user funds.

Anti-money laundering has become a short board for payment institutions

At present, it is difficult for third-party payment institutions in China to implement anti-money laundering. The construction of the anti-money laundering system requires strong Internet technology, system development capabilities and financial risk prevention and control experience, which is lacking in many payment institutions.

Lack of experience and inadequate system construction are the main reasons for the unsatisfactory progress of anti-money laundering by third-party payment institutions. On the one hand, compared with traditional financial institutions, payment institutions lack experience in controlling risks such as money laundering. The verification of customer identity and the analysis and identification of suspicious transactions are not good at payment agencies. On the other hand, most payment agencies have not yet built a professional anti-money laundering system, or just built a shell, which seriously affects the efficiency and effectiveness of anti-money laundering work. At present, the gap in anti-money laundering capabilities of various institutions is large. The central bank's subsidiaries have anti-money laundering bureaus, and the commercial bank transfer business is easy to track the central bank system funds. Third-party payment companies have anti-money laundering posts for compliance reasons, but they are seriously inadequate in monitoring money laundering.

Business expansion and innovation pose challenges for third-party payment institutions to fulfill their anti-money laundering obligations. China's third-party payment institutions pay too much attention to the quick and convenient payment, and there are obvious deficiencies in the monitoring of capital flow and the verification of transaction authenticity, which provides a soil for money laundering criminal activities to some extent. In addition, the third-party payment institution's business expansion, from the original payment single business to online prepaid card issuance and acceptance, mobile phone payment, mobile client applications, Internet wealth management and other products and fields, the anti-money laundering ability requirements continue to improve .

If the payment institution cannot meet the requirements of the regulatory authorities in the anti-money laundering work, it will not only lose the new business development opportunities under the policy support, but also lag behind the competitors in the fierce market fight, which will lead to punishment and failure to renew the license. Even the consequences of losing the license. At present, the renewal of the first batch of 27 licensed third-party payment institutions has not been announced. The industry believes that this may be waiting for the "non-bank payment agency classification rating results." The results of the rating will lead to “reshuffle” and have a huge impact on the development and adjustment of third-party payment services. In addition, the central bank may have further actions, and the direct connection channels of third-party payment companies and commercial banks may be cancelled, and third-party payment services will not be able to bypass UnionPay.

Supervision and technology synchronization to do money laundering control

At present, the renewal time of the third-party payment market has not yet been finalized, and the industry is entering a situation in which the giants are vying for the competition and the SMEs are in a hot battle. At this point, if the company can play the advantage card in anti-money laundering technology and user fund protection, it will become a new core competition point.

Third-party payment agencies are committed to creating a compliance anti-money laundering system that is a top priority. At present, the construction of anti-money laundering systems of many payment institutions is not perfect, and it is necessary to continuously optimize the anti-money laundering detection system to cope with the ever-increasing regulatory requirements. The China Financial Certification Center has repeatedly played the role of “firefighter” in payment testing and anti-money laundering inspections. In addition, from a technical point of view, third-party payment institutions not only need to cover the scope of customer identification and suspicious transaction monitoring to all emerging businesses and new customers, but also accelerate the adoption of new technologies and new methods (such as "face recognition"). ) to strengthen the effectiveness of anti-money laundering work.