The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and the People's Bank of China issued the "Notice on Further Promoting the Standardized and Healthy Development of the Credit Card Business" on the 7th to rectify the chaos in the credit card market and effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of financial consumers. This new regulatory regulation will have an important impact on your and my card opening and use.
Standardize the collection of credit card interest fees
There are many charges for credit card business, including annual fees, handling fees, interest, liquidated damages, etc. In actual operations, some banks have problems such as one-sided promotion of low interest rates and low fee rates, charging interest in disguised form in the name of handling fees, and obscuring actual usage costs.
In this regard, the notice requires banking financial institutions to effectively improve the standardization and transparency of credit card interest fee management, strictly fulfill their obligation to explain interest fees in contracts, and display the highest annualized interest rate level in a clear way.
The installment business is an area where there are many "routines" in the credit card business. When cardholders swipe their cards to make purchases, they often receive bank installment suggestions. Words such as "interest-free" and "zero interest rate" are exciting. But in fact, banks usually charge a certain fee for installment repayment business.
The notice requires that banking financial institutions must clearly display on the homepage of the installment business contract (agreement) all interest items that may be incurred by the installment business, the annualized interest rate level and the interest calculation method. When displaying the capital usage costs collected for installment business, the form of interest shall be uniformly used, and the form of handling fees shall not be used.
The notice also requires that banking financial institutions should clarify the minimum starting amount and maximum amount of installment business; they shall not apply for installment again on the fund balance that has been installed in installments; and the period of installment business shall not exceed 5 years.
In addition to strictly regulating the collection of interest fees, the notice also clearly requires banks to continue to take effective measures to actively promote the reasonable reduction of credit card interest levels on the premise of complying with laws and regulations and effectively covering risks.
The proportion of long-term sleep cards shall not exceed 20%
In recent years, with the rapid development of credit card business, some banks have blindly pursued market share, issued cards indiscriminately, and issued cards repeatedly, resulting in Problems such as disorderly competition and waste of resources.
The notice puts forward strict regulations on card issuance management, requiring banking financial institutions not to directly or indirectly use card issuance volume, number of customers, market share or market ranking as the single or main assessment indicator. Strengthen the dynamic monitoring and management of sleep credit cards. The number of long-term sleep credit cards with no active customer transactions for more than 18 consecutive months and current overdraft balances and overpayments of zero shall not account for more than 20% of the institution's total card issuance at any point in time. Banks exceeding this ratio are not allowed to issue new cards.
“In recent years, many banks have actively transformed into retail businesses, and credit cards as asset-based businesses have generally been regarded as the entry point and focus. However, in the process of business development, there have also been cases where the number of cards issued and the number of customers are simply the basis of business development. The management model as assessment indicators has led to short-term business,” said Zeng Gang, director of Shanghai Finance and Development Laboratory.
The person in charge of the relevant department of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission stated that in the future, the limit standard for the proportion of long-term sleep credit cards will be dynamically lowered, and the industry will continue to be urged to reduce the proportion of sleep cards to a lower level.
Set an upper limit on the total credit limit for a single customer
Excessive credit is also a common problem in the credit card field. In the face of fierce market competition, increasing credit lines often becomes a means for banks to compete for customers.
The notice requires banking financial institutions to reasonably set the upper limit of the total credit limit of a single customer's credit card, and include the customer's entire credit limit in the institution for unified management. When approving credit and adjusting the credit limit, the customer's cumulative credit limit from other institutions should be deducted.
Dong Ximiao, chief researcher of China Merchants Union Financial, said that the problem of some cardholders "using their cards to maintain their cards" and illegal cash out needs to be paid attention to. Commercial banks should reduce long credit extensions, strictly control excessive credit extensions, and prevent credit card debt risks.
Develop online credit card business
While vigorously rectifying the chaos, the notice will give sufficient space for credit card business innovation. It is clearly stated that innovative models such as online credit card business will be explored through pilots and other methods in accordance with the principles of risk control, prudent and orderly.
“Developing online credit card business will become an important attempt for commercial banks to deepen digital transformation and accelerate the in-depth integration and innovation of finance and technology.” Gao Feng, chief information officer of the China Banking Association, said that the key to developing online credit card business is The key is the remote interview.
Screening of target customers, remote video technical support, and online business process control should be done well.
It is understood that the regulatory authorities will follow the orientation of high-quality development and give priority to companies with high public service recognition and trust, consumer rights protection and petition complaint requirements, and prudent and strict business philosophy and risk control compliance. , banking financial institutions whose rectification work has reached regulatory targets will participate in the pilot.
Legal basis:
"Notice on Further Promoting the Standardized and Healthy Development of Credit Card Business"
1. Strengthening the Operation and Management of Credit Card Business
(1) Banking financial institutions shall formulate a prudent and steady credit card development strategy, which shall be reviewed and approved by the institution's board of directors or senior management, and shall be continuously and effectively implemented and regularly evaluated and improved. Banking financial institutions shall reasonably formulate annual credit card operation and management goals and plans strictly based on development strategies.
(2) Banking financial institutions should establish a scientific and reasonable credit card business performance assessment indicator system and salary payment mechanism. The weight of compliance operation indicators and risk management indicators should be significantly higher than other indicators. Banking financial institutions should regularly evaluate and determine the scope of positions and personnel that have an important impact on credit card business risks, and implement strict performance-based salary deferred payment, recourse, and clawback management.
(3) Banking financial institutions should strictly implement credit card asset quality classification standards and identification procedures, and reflect asset risk status comprehensively, accurately and timely. Strengthen the analysis of asset quality migration trends, set risk warning indicators, continue to effectively identify, measure, monitor, warn, prevent and deal with risks, accurately grasp the scale and structure of non-performing assets, and promptly dispose and write them off according to procedures.
(4) Banking financial institutions should strictly implement employee behavior management in credit card business, carry out continuous supervision and regular inspections, implement full-process supervision of the business behavior of important positions and key personnel, and establish and improve laws and regulations that violate laws and regulations. Behavioral accountability and recording mechanism to effectively monitor, identify, warn and prevent credit card business practitioners from violating laws and regulations.
(5) Banking financial institutions shall strengthen compliance training and consumer rights protection training for their employees engaged in credit card business, and the total training time per person per year shall not be less than 30 hours.