"It's easy to apply for installment, but it's difficult to cancel it" "It's easy to untie the card" "There are many credit cards in the name, and the high-paying job has been lost" ... In recent years, with the rapid development of credit card business, it has also left market chaos such as random card issuance, arbitrary charges and indiscriminate use of cards.
On December 16th, China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission issued the Notice on Further Promoting the Standardized and Healthy Development of Credit Card Business (Draft for Comment) (hereinafter referred to as the Notice), which put forward 37 governance requirements for interest fee collection, excessive credit granting, sleep card, co-branded cards, etc., and severely rectified the chaos in the credit card market.
cleaning up sleep card
according to the latest payment business data released by the central bank, by the third quarter of 221, the number of credit cards and debit-credit cards in use was 798 million, up .97% from the previous month.
in recent years, the major banks have been full of firepower in credit card marketing, but for a large number of card issuers, they are now facing the challenge of increasing bad pressure. The data shows that as of the third quarter of 221, the total outstanding credit of credit cards overdue for half a year reached 86.926 billion yuan, an increase of 6.26% from the previous month, accounting for 1.4% of the credit balance of credit cards.
China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission pointed out that some banks are unscientific in their business philosophy, blindly pursuing scale effect and market share, and the situation of issuing cards indiscriminately and repeatedly is prominent, which leads to disorderly competition and waste of resources.
"In the past, banks made great efforts to develop credit card business, taking the amount of cards issued as an important assessment index, which led to several results: First, it may lead to a large number of invalid cards, which is a waste of resources; Second, there may be potential risks, which will pose risks to banks or customers if they are used by criminals; In addition, a large number of card issuance may lead to a decline in customers' access standards. Credit granting to some people who should not have been granted credit or excessive credit granting will increase the credit risk of banks. " Ceng Gang, deputy director of the National Finance and Development Laboratory, said.
This Notice puts forward new regulations on card issuance management, and limits the proportion of sleep card, so as to urge the transformation of the extensive development model of credit cards. This also means that "scale is king" has become a thing of the past, and banks need to improve the old credit card business philosophy.
according to the circular, banks may not directly or indirectly take the number of cards issued, the number of customers, market share or market ranking as single or main assessment indicators. Strengthen the dynamic monitoring and management of sleep credit cards. The number of long-term sleep credit cards that have not been actively traded by customers for more than 18 consecutive months and the current overdraft balance and overpayment are zero shall not exceed 2% of the total card issuance of the institution at any time, except for credit cards with additional policy functions. Banks that exceed this ratio may not issue new cards.
CBN reporter learned from the heads of relevant departments in China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission that the regulatory authorities have made a thorough investigation of relevant institutions, and the current situation in sleep card varies greatly among banks, with an overall range of about 2% to 3%. "The ratio of 2% is only the starting point, not the end point. I hope that after a period of governance pressure drop, banks can all drop to this indicator. In the future, the ratio limit standard for long-term sleep credit cards will be dynamically lowered, and the sleep card ratio will be continuously reduced to a lower level."
Dong Ximiao, chief researcher of Zhaolian Finance, said that for commercial banks, the next step should be to conscientiously implement the spirit and requirements of the Notice and speed up the rectification of non-compliance behaviors. In particular, it is necessary to change the development model of credit card business, from simply pursuing scale and speed growth to professional and refined high-quality development.
standardizing the collection of interest and fees
credit card charges have become the hardest hit by consumers' complaints, and the problems include "automatic installment", "high annual fee" and "sky-high loss reporting fee" and so on. According to the data of China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, in the third quarter of 221, there were 44,374 complaints about credit card business, accounting for 5.8% of the total complaints.
credit card business charges many items, including service fee, annual fee, installment fee, as well as interest and penalty interest. "The issue of charging has been a concentrated topic in the field of credit card complaints for a long time. Among many charging items, it is necessary for banks to fully and clearly show and explain what kind of fees and how much fees are charged." Ceng Gang told reporters that many customers don't understand these situations clearly, so they may be overcharged and charged wrongly.
with regard to the collection of interest fees and information disclosure, the circular requires banks to strictly fulfill their obligation to prompt or explain the terms of interest, compound interest, fees, liquidated damages and other risk disclosure when concluding credit card contracts with customers, and show the annualized interest rate level to customers in an obvious way. Except for cash withdrawal business, the total amount of interest charged to customers who default or fail to repay within the time limit shall not exceed their corresponding principal.
For installment business, the Notice specifically requires banks to clearly display all interest items, annualized interest rate levels and interest rate calculation methods that may be generated by installment business on the first page of the installment business contract (agreement). When showing customers the cost of using the funds collected by installment business, interest shall be used uniformly, and handling fees shall not be used, unless otherwise stipulated by laws and regulations. If the customer settles the credit card installment business in advance, the bank shall charge interest according to the actual amount of funds occupied and the term.
Dong Ximiao believes that the credit card quota should be reasonably approved, multi-head credit granting should be reduced as much as possible, and excessive credit granting should be strictly controlled. For example, the requirement of "rigid deduction" should be strictly implemented, and when granting credit lines to cardholders, the lines they have obtained in other banks must be deducted. At the same time, we should standardize the collection of credit card interest fees and fully and accurately disclose the interest fees of credit cards and their installment business; Strengthen the access and management of external cooperation institutions, standardize credit card collection behavior, and effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of cardholders.
He also said that for cardholders, they must use credit cards rationally and be a "card god" instead of a "card slave". Usually, we should live within our means and spend reasonably. Never rob Peter to pay Paul by handling multiple credit cards. Credit card overdrafts must be repaid in time to avoid negative impact on credit records.
Beware of the bad taste of co-branded cards
In the current credit card market, co-branded cards are everywhere, covering aviation, catering, entertainment and other fields. Compared with ordinary credit cards, cardholders can get more privileges. The issuance of co-branded cards is in full swing, but at the same time, the problems behind its prosperity are also worrying.
"Some banks rely too much on external cooperative institutions to issue cards and collect money, which breeds potential risks." Dong Ximiao said.
Ceng Gang also said that in the existing credit card business, a large number of service providers are involved from marketing services to post-loan collection. These cooperation will help improve the acceptance environment of credit cards, but it will also lead to some risks, such as unclear legal relationship between partners and banks, whether the behavior of partners is standardized, whether there are unreasonable charges, whether customers are induced to borrow excessively and spend excessively, and so on.
regarding the management of external cooperation, the circular requires banks to formulate clear entry and exit standards and management approval procedures for cooperative institutions, and implement list management. The core business links of credit cards should be handled through the self-operated network platform to ensure that the relationship between creditor's rights and debts is clear and accurate. Set concentration indicators for the bank's card issuance and credit balance through a single cooperative institution. Co-branded units that issue co-branded cards shall be non-financial institutions that provide customers with their main business services, and the cooperation content shall be limited to the advertising promotion of co-branded units and the rights and interests services related to their main business.
Ceng Gang believes that the Notice requires banks to strengthen the management of partners, and has made corresponding regulations and arrangements from the access list to the legal relationship between partners, as well as the fees charged to partners, which is helpful to suppress the main responsibility in the process of cooperation and better protect consumers' rights and interests.
"Previously, some institutions providing financial services combined two types of financial services and financial products into a credit product in the name and framework of a joint card, which caused problems for cardholders to accurately understand the relationship between creditor's rights and debts, creditor's rights subjects, interest and fee schemes and so on. Co-branded cards should return to their origins and provide cardholders with other non-financial rights and interests services and functions on the basis of credit cards. If you want to engage in other joint financial products, don't use the form of co-branded cards. " The reporter learned from the heads of relevant departments in China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission.
Yang Tao, director of the Industrial Finance Research Base of China Academy of Social Sciences, believes that in the current ecological development of credit card industry, there are still some shortcomings in the existing mechanisms and models, whether from the card issuing side, the acceptance side, the interest rate and information protection, or the response to the digital impact and internationalization. Only by constantly improving the standardization can we continuously optimize the "soil" for ecological construction and avoid all kinds of violations, gray and black phenomena.