On May 9th, Wanshi Wanglian Information Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Wanshi Wanglian") announced its official opening. The institution will start operating the clearing business of Mastercard brand bank cards in China, collaborate with member institutions to issue universal Mastercard brand bank cards both domestically and internationally, and expand its acquiring business.
This is the second joint venture bank card clearing institution opened in China, following Connect (Hangzhou) Technology Services Co., Ltd. Public information shows that Wanshi Wanglian was jointly established by Mastercard and Wanglian Clearing Company, and obtained a bank card clearing business license issued by the People's Bank of China on November 17, 2023.
According to Guan Tao, Global Chief Economist of Bank of China Securities, the official opening and operation of Wanshi Wanglian Company will help achieve complementary advantages of bank card clearing services, better provide multi-level and differentiated payment services for domestic consumers, and also help China's financial industry better benchmark against international standards, promote healthy competition in the industry, and enhance the marketization and internationalization level of domestic financial institutions.
Foreign card organization's entry into China's Wanshi NetEase officially opens
Six months after the People's Bank of China issued a bank card clearing business license, Wanshi Wanglian announced its opening.
It is understood that after opening, Wanshi Netcom will authorize issuing banks to launch a new "China Mastercard" bank card product that is universal both domestically and internationally. At the same time, on the basis of the wide acceptance network of over 130 million merchants worldwide, MasterCard will also collaborate with various acquiring banks and payment institutions to establish a multi-channel acquiring network within China, providing cardholders with a fast and secure payment experience both domestically and internationally.
Regarding the official entry into the Chinese market, Ling Hai, Chairman of Wanshi Wanglian Company and International President of Mastercard, stated that with the comprehensive opening of Wanshi Wanglian's local business, Wanshi Wanglian and Mastercard will further build a secure, trustworthy, resilient, and innovative digital ecosystem in China. The company will also actively expand the reach of Mastercard brand products, adding millions of new acceptance points across the country.
According to public information, Wanshi Wanglian was jointly established by Mastercard and Wanglian Clearing Company in 2019. Among them, NetEase holds 49% of the shares through NetEase Technology Co., Ltd., and Mastercard holds a total of 51% of the shares.
As a shareholder of Wanshi Wanglian, Meng Ke, CEO of Mastercard, stated that this partnership with local partner Wanglian Clearing Company aims to assist Chinese cardholders of Mastercard brand cards to have more convenient payment services both domestically and internationally. The clearing company of Wanglian also stated that it will continue to support the various work of Wanshi Wanglian after its opening, and assist Wanshi Wanglian in providing consumers with high-level payment solutions.
In addition, Zheng Xiaofei, CEO of Wanshi NetEase, also stated that Wanshi NetEase will actively respond to the decision and deployment of the State Council to improve payment convenience, and work together with relevant parties to strengthen the construction of the card base ecosystem and other work collaborations.
Wang Pengbo, a senior researcher in the financial industry at Broadcom Consulting, believes that Wanshi Wanglian still needs to make efforts to deeply cultivate the Chinese market. At present, there is still a gap between it and UnionPay in the domestic market, whether it is in the infrastructure layout of card bases or online integrated products that adapt to the usage habits of domestic users, there is room for improvement.
Promoting the opening up of the bank card clearing market may bring a variety of possibilities
After the official opening of Wanshi Wanglian Company, it became the third bank card clearing institution in China after China UnionPay and Connect Company. In the eyes of many industry insiders, this means that China's bank card clearing market has embarked on a new journey of opening up, and the financial industry has fully entered a new stage of financial infrastructure opening up to the outside world.
In recent years, China has continuously promoted financial opening-up to the outside world, and the payment and settlement industry is one of them. In 2015, the State Council announced that domestic and foreign institutions that met the requirements could apply for a "Bank Card Clearing Business License" to engage in bank card clearing within China. This marks the beginning of the comprehensive opening of China's bank card clearing market. In 2020, Lianhe Company obtained the "Bank Card Clearing Business License" and became the first joint venture bank card clearing institution in China.
Yang Tao, Director of the Payment and Clearing Research Center at the Institute of Finance, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, stated that the opening of Wanshi Wanglian is an important event in the development of China's payment and clearing market. It means that the most critical clearing organization link in the financial market infrastructure will further reflect the characteristics of openness and competitiveness, which will help promote the high-quality development of the interbank transfer clearing market.
In Yang Tao's view, the opening of Wanshi Wanglian means that China's financial internationalization is still steadily advancing, and it has penetrated into key links of financial infrastructure. Under the premise of adhering to independent, controllable, safe and efficient measures, efforts are being made to improve the core competitiveness of the payment and settlement system through "bringing in" and "going out".
Yang Tao also pointed out that in the rapid development of China's payment industry, there are still many imbalanced and insufficient contradictions that need to be resolved. Introducing overseas clearing organizations will help alleviate the shortcomings of the market structure, optimize the pricing mechanism of payment services, promote further reform and improvement of the entire retail payment industry chain, continuously improve market competitiveness and service efficiency, including optimizing the cross-border payment convenience for overseas visitors to China, so as to better meet the increasingly diversified payment needs of consumers and enterprises.
Looking ahead to the future, Dong Ximiao, Chief Researcher of Zhaolian and part-time Researcher at the Financial Research Institute of Fudan University, believes that the opening of China's bank card clearing market will take various forms such as foreign institutions establishing joint ventures and wholly foreign-owned enterprises within the country. It is not ruled out that more domestic Chinese institutions may apply to establish bank card clearing institutions, and the bank card clearing market will usher in a diverse situation.
Dong Ximiao stated that the acceleration and continuous deepening of the opening up of China's bank card clearing market has entered a new stage of financial infrastructure opening up in China's financial industry. This will objectively promote better compliance with international rules, improve service levels, and prevent financial risks in China's domestic payment clearing market. It is of great positive significance for promoting the structural reform of the financial supply side and enhancing the ability of financial services to serve the real economy.
New Beijing News Shell Finance reporter Jiang Fan