WeChat reply again! What industry pain points have this exposed?, Multiple universities claim to discontinue WeChat payments | WeChat | pain points

Recently, several universities across the country have announced that they will suspend the use of WeChat Pay due to the collection of transaction fees. WeChat Pay apologized for this and stated that the campus non-profit scenario will maintain zero rates. What are profitable and non-profit scenarios on campus? What industry pain points have this exposed?

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Multiple universities have announced that WeChat Pay will be discontinued due to "additional transaction fees"

Recently, Northwestern University announced that due to Tencent's WeChat Pay's refined management of campus scene users starting from July 1st, except for tuition fees, other fees will be restricted and a handling fee of 0.6% will be charged. In order to protect the interests of teachers and students, WeChat code scanning payment service for campus all-in-one card users was suspended from June 30, and the campus card, Bank of Communications App, Cloud Flash Pay, Alipay and other channels were used normally.

The reporter found that this suspension has had an impact on many payment scenarios in some universities. Zhoukou Normal University mentioned in the announcement that the application scenarios for discontinuing WeChat payment include various fees collected by the finance department, campus one card recharge, payment of textbook fees, payment of network fees for faculty and staff living areas, and payment of air conditioning and electricity fees for student dormitories.

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WeChat response:

The 0.6% rate is a false rumor, and a 0.2% fee will be charged for profit scenarios on campus

In response, WeChat officially issued a statement regarding the issue of university fee rates. The statement states that due to the poor transmission of individual adjustments to the payment rates for college life services, which have caused inconvenience to everyone, we apologize to the schools and teachers and students.

WeChat Pay staff told Voice of China at the headquarters, "Since 2015, WeChat Pay has continued to adopt a zero rate preferential policy in non-profit scenarios in universities. With the continuous increase in campus scenarios and the number of merchants, we have found that some profitable scenarios such as e-commerce and liquor travel have squeezed out zero rate educational subsidy resources, resulting in increasing costs. This adjustment only clarifies this small portion of profitable scenarios, while all non-profit scenarios on campuses continue to maintain zero rate preferential policies."

Generally speaking, payment institutions will charge merchants a certain proportion of fees when providing payment services. In addition to retaining a portion of this fee, it will also be distributed proportionally to the issuing bank and clearing institution.

In 2016, the National Development and Reform Commission and the People's Bank of China issued a notice on improving the pricing mechanism for bank card swiping fees. Bank card special merchants were uniformly divided into three categories - standard merchants such as catering, hotels, and department stores, with a rate of around 0.6%; The rates for households, supermarkets, gas stations and other livelihood related preferential merchants are 0.38% to 0.48%; Public schools, public hospitals, charitable organizations, and other public welfare merchants have zero fees. Each acquiring institution conducts market-oriented pricing based on this standard.

The reporter found that WeChat Pay's standard industry rate for charging merchants is around 0.6%. At the same time, due to the particularity of individual industries, the rate standards may also fluctuate. For example, virtual businesses such as games and online audio and video account for 1%; The contribution for people's livelihood is 0.2%; Education, medical care, public welfare, and private universities have a payment rate of 0.

From the announcements released by some universities, a focal point of this controversy is that WeChat Pay will adjust the fee rate for many payment scenarios on campus from 0% to 0.6%.

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How to distinguish between profitable and non-profit scenarios in schools?

The statement released on WeChat has also sparked heated discussions on the internet. The most discussed topic is: What are the non-profit scenarios? Does the zero rate package include the school cafeteria?

WeChat Pay stated that due to insufficient consideration of the division of campus profit scenarios, the original rate adjustment involved the life service scenarios operated by the main body of the school. After collecting and providing feedback from all parties, WeChat Pay has decided to maintain a zero rate preferential policy for the above-mentioned life service scenarios. According to insiders, the cafeterias of university entities still have a 0% rate, while for external profit outsourcing cafeterias, external guesthouses, etc., a 0.2% rate is implemented.

Regarding this, Sun Wenkai, Vice Dean of the National Institute of Small and Medium Enterprises at Renmin University of China, stated that campuses are a complex scenario, and distinguishing fees is indeed reasonable: "Previously, a hospital or school was basically divided based on geographical space, such as treating the entire geographical space of a hospital or school as non-profit institutions. However, in reality, a large number of commercial institutions have already been accommodated in the same school space, and the school is a different legal entity. Distinguishing fees from them does not violate the tradition of banks and third-party institutions not charging non-profit institutions."

Experts say that behind the rapid growth of the third-party payment industry in the past few years is the high subsidy behavior carried out by many payment institutions to seize the market. Charging itself is a market behavior, but it is also important to respect the market and not "raise it all at once".

For payment institutions, achieving a dynamic balance between seeking commercial benefits and serving small and micro enterprises will be an important challenge in the future. Sun Wenkai stated that this incident has also exposed some industry pain points.

"Third party payment institutions also need to bear complex operating costs for their own operations. Giving non-profit institutions free handling fees is actually a subsidy, and charging fees to for-profit institutions is a prerequisite for the normal operation of third-party institutions. If more and more for-profit institutions take the free riding of non-profit institutions free handling fees, it is also detrimental to the development of the entire third-party market. To address similar phenomena, the entire payment market needs to be further regulated and clarified."