Recently, it was found that another payment institution was listed as abnormal by the Free Trade Zone Service Center of Zhengzhou Market Supervision Administration because it could not be contacted through the registered residence or business place.
The missing institution is Henan Huiyinfeng Information Technology *** referred to as "Huiyinfeng"), whose business address is located in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, and is one of the few licensed payment institutions in Henan.
The licence has not expired
Huiyinfeng, the full name of Henan Huiyinfeng Information Technology, was established in 2011 and has a registered capital of 30 million yuan. As one of the few licensed payment institutions in Henan, the business type of its payment license is the issuance and acceptance of prepaid cards, and its business scope covers the whole province of Henan. HSBC successfully renewed its payment licence on 21 December 2021 and the licence will now be valid until 21 December 2026.
However, since November 22, 2023, HSBC has been included in the list of abnormal operations by relevant departments, and has not yet resumed normal operations. Interestingly, HSBC did not have any material disclosures or negative news prior to being listed as operating anomalies. In addition, the payment license they hold is still valid. Despite the operational difficulties, HSBC still retains a legal payment license, which is undoubtedly a great benefit for them to resume normal operations in the future.
The analysis points out that the current "lost contact" payment companies are mainly caused by serious violations of laws and regulations, affected by the parent company or poor revenue. For HSBC, a payment company, there was only one violation record in its business process, which occurred in 2017, when it was fined 340,000 yuan by the regulatory authorities for failing to prevent money laundering, failing to identify customers as required, and failing to keep customer identity information as required. Other than that, HSBC is rarely involved in legal disputes.
From the perspective of equity structure, the major shareholder accounting for 80% of the equity of HSBC, that is, Beijing Hexun ** Consulting Services *** referred to as "Beijing Hexun") is in good operating condition. However, Henan Huiyinfeng Investment Management, which accounts for 20% of the shares, is in an abnormal state of operation.
In addition, according to the Regulations on Non-bank Payment Institutions, the registered capital of a payment institution must reach at least 100 million yuan, and the name of the payment institution must include the word "payment". However, there is no news that HSBC has met the requirements for changing its name to "payment", and its existing registered capital does not meet the required minimum standards. These factors may be related to the current situation of HSBC.
2. The list of missing contacts has surged
In recent years, the phenomenon of "loss of contact" of payment institutions has been increasing. Most of these "lost contact" payment institutions have violated laws and regulations and have been punished by relevant departments for large sums of money. After being applied for enforcement and restricted, these companies are not even able to find the courts, making it difficult for the institutions they cooperate with to recover their debts.
Analysts believe that at this stage, the "lost contact" institutions are mainly prepaid card payment institutions. Some prepaid card institutions used to use the "reserve fund" to make profits, but after strengthening the management of the "reserve fund", the illegal revenue and profits of these institutions were compressed. In addition, some prepaid card companies with innovative capabilities and qualifications for business in multiple places have rapidly shifted online, further squeezing the living space of small and medium-sized institutions.
Small and medium-sized prepaid card institutions are limited by the scope of business, resulting in problems such as poor liquidity of prepaid cards, high maintenance costs and marketing costs. Affected by policy changes and large prepaid card institutions, many prepaid card businesses have difficulty in developing their business and have fallen into a strange circle of difficulty in making profits. In recent years, the voluntary cancellation of prepaid card payment licenses has accelerated, which also reflects that many prepaid card institutions are abandoning the prepaid card business to seek transformation. Some prepaid card institutions will insist on redeeming prepaid cards for users after canceling the prepaid card business, but it is not uncommon for payment companies to "lose contact" without doing a good job of removal.
In general, prepaid card institutions other than the head enterprises are now unable to bear the high cost of digitalization due to their weak earning capacity and small scope of use, and their development has become more and more difficult in the face of the rigid requirements of increasing paid-in registered capital.