China Net Finance, December 29 (Reporter Wang Jinrui) Today, the People's Bank of China held a briefing on the special rectification work of refusing to accept RMB cash. Luo Rui, director of the Currency, Gold and Silver Bureau of the People's Bank of China, said at the meeting that cash service is the most basic financial service and plays an important role in meeting the production and living needs of the people, serving the real economy, and maintaining financial stability. Compared with electronic payment, cash has unique advantages in terms of anonymity and privacy protection, which is also conducive to protecting the independent choice of financial consumers and promoting the diversified development of payment methods.
Organize and carry out special rectification work on cash refusal.
Cash is the most basic payment tool and plays an important role in ensuring people's livelihood. Luo Rui said that with the development of electronic payment, the cash collection and payment environment has undergone major changes, and the phenomenon of refusing to accept cash has occurred from time to time. Since 2018, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) and 12 ministries and commissions, including the National Development and Reform Commission, have established a consultation mechanism for rectifying the refusal to accept cash, clarifying policy standards, strengthening publicity and guidance, smoothing channels for complaints and reports, carrying out inspections and verifications, and reporting and publicizing penalties, so that the problem of refusal to accept cash has been alleviated to a certain extent.
At present, the work of rectifying the refusal of cash is facing a new situation and a new situation. From October 2023, the People's Bank of China will organize and carry out a six-month special rectification work on the refusal of cash, and on the basis of guaranteeing cash, give full play to the role of overall planning and coordination, and organize commercial banks in conjunction with the member units of the consultation mechanism to solidly promote the special rectification work.
The first is to comprehensively explore and arrange. Improve the grid management mechanism of commercial banks, and organize and carry out a comprehensive survey of rejected cash. As of December 24, 2023, a total of 141 business entities have been surveyed10,000 families. A commercial bank and a business entity sign a "Letter of Commitment not to refuse to accept cash"7510,000 copies, and guide business entities to post signs that support cash payment 3970,000. Issuance of "coin purses" to business entities1820,000 to remind business entities with insufficient change reserves, and carry out diversified and personalized cash services such as door-to-door collection and door-to-door payment according to demand, so as to continuously improve the willingness of business entities to accept cash.
The second is to punish according to law. Implement punishments and publicize violations of the law with a high degree of public attention and a large scope of influence, and carry out warning education for small and micro illegal entities with a low degree of public attention and a small scope of influence. During the special rectification period, six penalty procedures for refusing to accept cash were completed.
The third is publicity and guidance. Branches of the People's Bank of China (PBoC) have organized commercial banks to carry out extensive publicity work in the form of on-site centralized publicity, door-to-door publicity by merchants, special publicity on "RMB Cash Day", online publicity and other forms with the help of public transportation, radio and television, Internet platforms and other channels, so as to continuously strengthen the public's concept of cash legal compensation and enhance the awareness of law-abiding business entities.
In terms of investigating and dealing with the illegal acts of refusing to accept cash, Zeng Zhicheng, vice president of the Beijing branch of the People's Bank of China, said that the Beijing branch of the People's Bank of China adheres to the combination of severe punishment and publicity and guidance, and implements penalties on the subjects who refuse to accept cash with a high degree of public concern and a large scope of influence, and has successively given economic penalties ranging from 50,000 yuan to 500,000 yuan to 20 illegal entities that refuse to accept cash, with a cumulative fine of 3.04 million yuan, ranking first in the country in terms of the number and amount of penalties, which has played a strong deterrent role.
The penalized units involve tourist attractions, transportation, health care, parking lots, shopping, catering, entertainment and other industry scenarios, and the effect of promoting reform is significant. For small and micro economies that have a low degree of public attention and a small scope of influence, and other entities that refuse to accept cash, warning education is the mainstay. Zeng Zhicheng said.
Improve the convenience of cash business handling for specific groups.
The use of cash is almost not limited by the environment, scenes, and material conditions, and does not require application foundations such as bank accounts and mobile terminals, which is very important for specific groups such as the elderly, rural residents, and low-income people.
Zhang Meng, deputy director of the Currency, Gold and Silver Bureau of the People's Bank of China, said that the use of cash is mainly in rural areas and the elderly (over 65 years old), especially in counties, where the elderly are more dependent on cash. According to the sample survey, more than 75% of the elderly regularly use cash. Among them, the number of elderly people in the county accounts for 804%, and the proportion of elderly people in urban areas is 676%。In addition, small and micro businesses in wholesale and retail industries, as well as migrant workers in urban areas, also use more cash.
Zhang Meng further said that in order to improve the level of facilitation of cash deposit and withdrawal business for the elderly and other groups, the People's Bank of China organized commercial banks to carry out the following work: First, fully understand the problems and demands of elderly customers in handling cash business, and make predictions and preparations for special needs such as pension payment and small and medium-sized denominations of RMB, so as to improve the forward-looking cash service. The second is to organize business consultation and interpretation, classification guidance and handling in view of centralized access and other situations, so as to improve the efficiency of cash business handling. The third is to provide the elderly with a priority window and green channel for cash business, and provide special cash services for the elderly with reduced mobility, so as to improve the temperature of cash services.
Zeng Zhicheng said that in order to improve the level of facilitation of cash deposit and withdrawal business for the elderly and other groups, the Beijing Branch of the People's Bank of China organized commercial banks to carry out the following work: First, to retain manual cash counters to the greatest extent. In strict accordance with the requirements of the notice jointly issued by the General Office of the People's Bank of China and the General Office of the State Administration of Financial Supervision and Administration at the beginning of the year, ensure that bank outlets that meet the conditions for handling manual cash business "do everything they can", and improve the convenience of handling cash business for the elderly. The second is to actively promote the transformation of network services for the elderly. Adopt the reconstruction of barrier-free passages, set up love seats, magnifying glasses, first-aid kits, and retain paper publicity materials, etc., to reduce the difficulty and threshold for the elderly to handle cash business. The third is to continue to strengthen the age-appropriate transformation of cash deposit and withdrawal self-service equipment. In ATMs and other self-service cash deposit and withdrawal equipment, the introduction of large-print version, reading version of the interface, and increase investment in self-service equipment that can accept passbooks, improve the degree of adaptation of cash deposit and withdrawal self-service equipment.
Wang Jinguo, deputy general manager of the operation management department of the Agricultural Bank of China, said that the bank vigorously promoted the agricultural service project40,000 outlets have been renovated for the elderlyIn 2023, more than 200,000 person-times of door-to-door services will be provided to the elderly and other groups with reduced mobility.
In order to ensure the convenience of cash payment for overseas personnel in China, Yang Renrong, member of the Party Committee of the Zhejiang Branch of the People's Bank of China, said that the Zhejiang Branch has launched the implementation of the payment facilitation project for overseas personnel in the province in accordance with the work deployment of the head office on improving the payment service level of overseas personnel in China, focusing on key areas such as "food, housing, transportation, travel, shopping and entertainment" involved in overseas personnel, and actively establishing and improving the payment service system including foreign card acceptance, foreign currency exchange, cash payment, mobile payment and digital RMB. At present, the province's key commercial outdoor card acceptance and transformation rate has reached 85%, the ATM foreign card transformation rate in key areas has reached 99%, and 2 million mobile payment merchants can accept foreign personnel. There are 5,700 bank outlets that have opened foreign exchange settlement and sales services for private purposes, and 2.67 million e-RMB merchants can accept them.
Dai Xinchen, deputy general manager of the operation management department of ICBC, said that in order to improve the convenience of cash exchange and payment for overseas visitors to China, ICBC has innovated and developed and deployed 33 foreign currency exchange machines in key foreign-related scenes in Chengdu, Hangzhou, Guangzhou and other cities, supporting the self-service exchange of foreign currency cash in 17 currencies such as US dollars and 156 types of coupons into RMB cash or digital yuan.
Adhere to the principle of combining universal application with classified management.
The main scenarios of cash use involve many aspects of residents' daily life, mainly including shopping malls, supermarkets, bazaars, catering and entertainment, mobile vendors and other consumption scenarios, water, electricity and heating and other living payment scenarios, as well as public transportation and hospitals. Zhang Meng said that the People's Bank of China adheres to the principle of combining universal application and classified management, and puts forward different requirements for the cash receipt and payment behavior of different entities and promotes their implementation.
First, public institutions and business entities with a wide range of stakeholders and great social impact should strengthen the awareness of cash services. Among them, for administrative fees related to people's livelihood and public service charges such as social security, medical care, education, water, electricity and gas, the charging unit or its entrusted collection agency must have an artificial cash collection and payment channel;Transportation units such as railways and road passenger transport, as well as large and medium-sized commercial institutions involved in retail, catering, residential services and entertainment industries, shall receive cash by manual or self-service cash machines.
The second is to adopt appropriate ways to accept cash according to local conditions according to different consumption patterns. Among them, for business entities and customers to conduct face-to-face transactions or provide services, cash payment should be supported;For online and offline mixed operations and offline payment is supported, cash payment should be supported in the collection linkFor those who operate in the form of unmanned sales, they can also not accept cash, but they must meet the cash payment needs of consumers in special circumstances, such as insufficient mobile phone power and network failureCash is not accepted for all transactions, payments and services that are completed online.
Third, in view of all kinds of problems existing in the transaction, the relevant business entities should inform and respect the public's choice in advance. Business entities that should support cash payment should clarify the cash receipt and payment logo and publicize it in a conspicuous position, and make a good reserve for changeBusiness entities that can not accept cash should explain the payment method in advance. In addition, all types of business entities should respect the public's right to choose payment as the fundamental principle, and negotiate with consumers to determine payment methods.
If the public encounters the refusal to accept cash, they can clearly inform the other party that their behavior is illegal, keep the relevant ** and audio evidence, and complain and report to the local branch of the People's Bank of China. We will verify the facts in accordance with the relevant laws and law enforcement procedures, and give criticism and education, warnings and fines depending on the nature of the act, the severity of the circumstances, and the scope of impact. Zhang Meng said.