**: House of Finance and Economics.
Every Internet giant has a financial dream, and Bilibili is no exception.
When Douyin and Kuaishou included the payment license in their pockets, the acquisition of the payment license of Station B encountered an accident.
On February 23, the announcement of Ningbo's public resource transaction electronic service system showed that Zhejiang Yongyi Electronic Payment, which was won by Station B two years ago, referred to as "Yongyi Payment") 655% of the equity was put on the auction shelf again. According to ** report, for the transaction approval of station B, the Ningbo branch of the central bank has officially issued the "Decision on the Inadmissibility of Administrative License Applications".
This means that after more than two years of regulatory approvals, the deal did not close.
This incident is particularly interesting at a time when the Payment Institutions Regulations are about to come into effect.
B station dreams of breaking the payment license
At the end of 2021, Yongyi paid 655% of the state-owned equity was listed for sale.
In less than two months, the equity auction project was officially closed. The buyer is Shanghai Kuanyu Digital Technology Co., Ltd. *** referred to as "Kuanyu Digital"), and the transaction price is about 1$1.8 billion.
Press 1 at the time1.8 billion yuan acquisition of Yongyi pay 65With a 5% stake, the valuation of this payment license is at 1800 million yuan.
Kuanyu Digital is the main company of Bilibili (Bilibili).
Founded on June 26, 2009, Bilibili is an iconic brand and a leading community for the young generation in China. On March 28, 2018, Station B was listed on the NASDAQ in the United States. On March 29, 2021, Bilibili was officially listed for the second time in Hong Kong. On September 29, 2022, according to the official website of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Station B was converted from a secondary listing to a primary listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, which officially took effect on October 3.
Encyclopedia shows,Station B was an ACG (animation、comics、games) content creation and sharing in the early daysAfter more than ten years of development,Around users、Creators and content,Build an ecosystem that continuously produces high-quality content,Station B has covered more than 7000 multicultural communities at the interest circle,It has won the first place in the two lists of "Generation Z Preferred APP" and "Generation Z Preferred Pan Entertainment APP" selected by QuestMobile Research Institute.
Why the transaction failed
Regarding the failure of this transaction, some industry insiders said to the Financial House of Representatives that the reason may be related to the fact that Station B is the buyer and the shareholder has a foreign capital background, which may lead to the acquisition being rejected by the regulator.
In addition, there are problems with Yongyi Pay itself, which may also cause the transaction to fail.
Yuyao China Plastics City Logistics, the transferor of the equity transfer, said that considering the survival plight of Yongyi Pay in the future, and the "Regulations on the Supervision and Administration of Non-bank Payment Institutions" promulgated by Yongyi Payment will come into force on May 1, 2024, the conditions for the renewal of the payment license are extremely harsh, which makes the risk of Yongyi Payment guarantee huge
In terms of penalties, Yongyi Pay received two fines in 2019, and the illegal acts were mainly to provide payment services for illegal transactions, which endangered the payment service market; Failure to establish and implement the settlement account management system of the acquiring bank in accordance with the regulations. tampering with or concealing transaction information and the circumstances are serious, violating the relevant provisions of liquidation management; Failure to establish and implement the settlement account management system of the acquiring bank in accordance with the regulations.
From the perspective of performance, Yongyi Pay's revenue in 2023 will be 5.91 million yuan, and in 2022, it will be 7.03 million yuan; The net profit in 2023 will be -3.73 million yuan, and in 2022 it will be 350,000 yuan.
The acquisition of station B failed to fulfill its wishes, and Yongyi Pay was once again put on the shelf.
According to the announcement of the Ningbo public resource transaction electronic service system, Yongyi pays 655% state-owned equity (Yuyao China Plastics City Logistics***56..)5%, Yuyao China Plastic Science and Technology City Group ***9%) issued a pre-announcement before the Spring Festival in 2024, with a price not lower than the original asset appraisal price of 1The 800 million yuan ** will be re-listed and transferred to the whole country, so as to reintroduce strategic partners that meet the filing requirements of the central bank.
The financial ambitions of the internet giants
In the third-party payment market dominated by Alipay and WeChat Pay, other scenario giants have acquired payment licenses in recent years to complete the last link of the closed-loop business model and complete the business ecological puzzle.
For example, JD.com, Meituan, Xiaomi, Pinduoduo, etc. won payment licenses early. In 2012, JD.com Group wholly acquired online banking** and obtained a payment license; In 2016, Meituan wholly acquired the third-party payment company Qiandaibao, and in the same year, Xiaomi acquired a 65% stake in Jiefu Ruitong; In 2020, Pinduoduo also won a payment license through the acquisition of payment company Paytong.
According to the report released by iResearch earlier, there are three reasons for the layout of third-party payment business by Internet giants: first, to form their own business closed-loop to prevent user transaction information and payment information from being obtained by other third-party payment companies outside the system, affecting their own business advantages; Second, with the expansion of the business scale in the system, the total amount of payment transaction fees continues to increase, and the establishment of free payment channels can save this part of the cost; Third, it is hoped that after the transaction flow in the system is converted into payment flow, it will further superimpose credit, wealth management and other services to earn financial service fees.
As the competitors of ***b station, Douyin and Kuaishou have already won the payment license.
In August 2020, ByteDance, the parent company of Douyin, acquired Wuhan Hezhong Yibao Technology *** referred to as "Hezhong Pay"), thus obtaining a payment license.
According to the data, Hezhong Pay changed its industry and commerce on August 28, 2020, and the investor was changed from Zhongfa Industrial (Group)** to Tianjin Tongrong E-commerce***Tianjin Tongrong E-commerce***The legal representative is Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, and the shareholder is Beijing Shibei Technology, which is 99% owned by Zhang Yiming
Hezhong Pay was established in 2012 with a registered capital of 1RMB 500 million, in 2014 obtained the "Payment Business License" issued by the People's Bank of China, becoming the first licensed Internet payment enterprise in Hubei Province.
After winning the payment license, Douyin Pay was also officially launched. The live streaming business promoted by Douyin has provided strong support for the use of Douyin payment, and has also been interpreted by the outside world as a new level of Douyin's financial ambitions.
Based on Douyin Pay, the most profitable part of Douyin's financial landscape is consumer credit. In the Douyin "wallet", there are two lending products, Assured Loan and Douyin Monthly Payment (formerly DOU Installment), and the credit institutions are Zhongrong Small Loan and other licensed financial institutions.
On April 28, 2022, the registered capital of Zhongrong Microfinance increased from 5 billion to 9 billion, and on December 29, 2023, the registered capital increased from 9 billion to 19 billion, making it the microcredit company with the highest registered capital at present.
With the surge in traffic, Zhongrong Small Loan has become a dark horse in the field of consumer loans through the Douyin platform. With the rapid development of the lending business, Douyin has also been involved in the whirlpool of "violent collection".
On the Black Cat complaint platform, there are more than 20,000 complaints and more than 1,700 in the last 30 days, involving "violent collection", "harassment of family members", "theft of personal information", etc.
Previously, it was said that "Douyin and other byte-based companies have a loan balance of nearly 400 billion", and Zhongrong Small Loan responded that it was false information. According to the latest reports from Caixin and others, the balance of Douyin lending will exceed 300 billion by the end of 2023, and it has jumped into the first-line camp of domestic small loans.
Kuaishou, which also has financial ambitions, has also won a payment license.
In November 2020, Kuaishou acquired the payment institution Yilian Pay in the form of cash + **, and after the transaction was completed, Kuaishou held more than 50% of the shares of Yilian Pay, thus winning the payment license.
According to public information, Yilian Pay holds payment licenses for domestic Internet payment, mobile payment, and prepaid card issuance and acceptance (Guangdong Province), as well as cross-border RMB payment licenses, and its business is mainly online and overseas payment business.
In the eyes of industry insiders, in order for Internet giants to truly realize the closed loop of business, transaction payment links are indispensable, and the failure of station B's acquisition of payment licenses will undoubtedly put them in a more disadvantageous position.
In 2022, Station B will have a net loss of 750.8 billion yuan, an increase of 10 percent year-on-year26%, a record high. The situation in 2023 is also not optimistic, the financial report shows that in the third quarter of 2023, Station B's revenue will be 5.8 billion yuan, and the adjusted net loss will be 8600 million yuan.
In the next step, the industry will wait and see how Bilibili will make up for the missing payment licenses in the business ecological map.