operator to pay business to get the card one year still bumpy squeeze not into the mainstream shopping district

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Still not getting key business license to be blocked by main trade circle

It times Zhang

In early January this year, the central bank issued 26 third party payment licences, totalling 223.

The three operators, China Telecom, Chinese mobile and Unicom, got third party payment licences by the end of 2011. Compared to many licensed enterprises, the strength of three operators is powerful, originally thought they in the third party payment market set off a big storm. But on the contrary, the past year has been quite bumpy.

The past year has not picked up

On the last day of 2011, China Telecom and Unicom got a mobile phone payment, a bank card payment, a fixed-line payment of three licences, and China Mobile got a two-piece payment license excluding fixed-line payments.

From last year's point of view, operators did not make a big move to third party payments, and a handful of mobile payment services related to payment licences have not progressed well. For example, a carrier and China-oil cooperation in the nationwide brush mobile phone to reduce oil fee activities, this than the Bank of China to carry out the same activity concessions more strongly, but the effect is not satisfactory.

And the reporter log on to three operators of mobile phone payment or mobile wallet page, also obviously feel this bleak, "cooperative shop" in the region to keep a lot of vacancies, written "to be determined." and a variety of promotional activities also appear relatively old single, basic is an activity, from the year to end. In this connection, Shanghai's two operators said that in the past year, they have been in the mobile payment sector, the basic is a wait-and-see attitude, and therefore did not take a particularly big action.

Shanghai operator of the payment business told reporters that his biggest feeling is that the Third-party payment license to the mobile payment business development role is not so obvious, "operators are doing, want to do seems to have little relationship with the license." ”

In fact, the operator's third party payment business does not have much to do in the beginning of its license to bury the foreshadowing.

In the opinion of analysts, operators were able to obtain Third-party payment license is the result of interest game, the two sides of the game are operators and banking. The final compromise between the two sides, the result is that operators, although licensed, but the scope of business is tightly limited, operators engaged in the type of business than many small licensed enterprises, especially the two most important business (Internet payment business and prepaid card issuance, processing business) is not open to operators. The central bank's attitude suggests that operators are only expected to do the payment business closely related to their own business and do not want operators to compete directly with third parties.

Not crowded into the mainstream business circle

Although there is a huge user base, but this does not give operators a third party to pay the business too much help, they have even been repeatedly blocked by the mainstream shopping circle outside the door.

Carrier's third party payment model and UnionPay's POS machine can not be integrated, so when the mobile phone to pay, operators have to do it on their own, but this also gives them the entry of the barriers. "The barriers are so high that operators want to get a piece of it too hard." "The head of an operator in Shanghai said that they had cooperated with Carrefour earlier, but eventually because the number of users was too small, the POS machine that paid for the mobile phone was moved from the table to the table and ended."

"Businesses are unwilling to allow third parties to pay for entry, especially if third-party payments do not scale, affecting their profitability system." A retailer told reporters: "For the merchant, more than one payment method, is tantamount to a liquidation, will affect the withdrawal of funds." In addition, in order to become familiar with the operators of third-party payments, shops also need to train people, but the real use of mobile payments are very few consumers, over time, they are unwilling to invest in this human resources expenditure. "In fact, as more and more malls, supermarkets start their own enclosure, the issuance of exclusive pre-sale cards, for operator-led Third-party payments, the difficulty will be more difficult to enter."

In order to develop the merchant circle, the operators began to choose to cooperate with the bank more. But there are people in the industry who are not entirely optimistic about the mode of cooperation between operators and banks, "due to technical reasons, different bank write key different, user acceptance mode is also different, plus mobile phone card space is limited, so generally one operator can only work with one or several banks, the number of users is limited to the current number of the bank, It is not a long-term plan for wider outreach. ”

Pressure after determination of mobile payment criteria

At the end of last year, the central bank issued a mobile payment standard and identified it as the UnionPay 13.56MHz standard, which brought enormous pressure on operators.

"2012, we wait and see, mainly to wait for the final dust settles." "The chief executive of a Shanghai operator said that they had been lucky before, mainly because of the previous 2.4GHZ chip and terminal input is really not small," in the tens into the left and right. "And the new mode of chip card replacement cost is 100 yuan, according to the old customer's 100,000 base, this expenditure is not a small number."

Shanghai mobile related personnel also revealed that, although the current mobile users, is still the state of the old and new system coexist, but in fact, the previous mobile main push of the 2.4GHz mode of NFC card is gradually fading away, and the previous laying of the subway, supermarkets signed subscribers are gradually decreasing. For example, in Shanghai, the subway station all printed with "mobile wallet" signs of the terminal to carry out large-scale replacement, which is equivalent to the basic total of the previous investment set aside. And then, the new 13.56MHz chip replacement, they also have to bear all the replacement costs, "but not to be eliminated." ”

In an effort to expand rapidly, China Unicom last year launched a joint Swp-sim card model with the Chinese merchants Bank, which will secure payment chips in mobile SIM cards. But in the industry, this model faces the challenge is also very large, "operators do mobile payment business, the main purpose is to pull traffic and increase user viscosity, from this point of view, in various modes of NFC payment card + Communication Card mode is the most easily accepted by the operator, That is, the use of bank POS machine in the popularity of merchants to achieve rapid expansion, the operation is not very difficult. But this dual-card overlay chip is usually thicker than the average SIM, in order to adapt to this new SIM card, it is bound to reform the terminal, which involves huge costs. ”