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With the vigorous cooperation and joint efforts of all banks, the People's Bank of China finished building up and popularizing the small-amount payment system in June 2006 throughout China. The small-amount payment system may support the application of a number of payment instruments, has met the demands for the payment and clearing services with low social costs and large trading amount, and has become a safe and high-efficiency public platform for trans-bank payment and clearing as well as business innovations of banking financial institutions. In order to give play to the functions of the small-amount payment system, and effectively improve the environment for public payment, we hereby give our notice as follows regarding the relevant matters on strengthening the popularization of the small-amount payment system: I. Strengthening the Business Organization and Propaganda, and Improving the Public Awareness Strengthening the organizing work and the propaganda is an important measure of popularizing the small-amount payment system. Shanghai Head Office, all branches, business management departments, central sub-branches of provincial capital cities of the People's Bank shall coordinate with relevant departments of local governments and make full use of various media, and strengthen the organizing work and the propaganda, so as to further propel the development of the small-amount payment system, and support all banks to make use of the small-amount payment system to expand and innovate their business; they shall, by starting from the payment demands of social and economic activities, and in light of the features of the functions of the small-amount payment system, fully propagandize the professional knowledge of the small-amount payment system, and improve the pertinency and effectiveness of the propaganda. Each banking financial institution shall strengthen the professional trainings of the small-amount payment system, particularly the trainings for the front-line staff and the managers; they shall make full use of the service windows to propagandize the functions of the small-amount payment system to depositing entities, so as to improve the awareness of the public. II. Strengthening the Popularization of New Business under the Small-amount Payment System in Light of the Actual Situations in All Localities Through the small-amount payment system, five types of basic business, namely, common debit, common credit, regular debit, regular credit and information service, have been opened, and the check loading business is being experimented in Tianjin, Hainan Province and Gansu Province. According to the business popularization plan, the People's Bank shall, by the end of 2006, finish the experiment of the small-amount payment system's check reservation business in Gansu Province, the experiment of nationwide deposit and cash withdrawal business in Shandong Province, and the experimental work of the centralized collection and payment business by clearing organizations in Shaanxi Province. Shanghai Head Office, all branches, business management departments, central sub-branches of provincial capital cities of the People's Bank shall do a good job in popularizing the new business of the small-amount payment system, determine the business types under planned popularization in light of their local actual situations, draft the corresponding implementation scheme, bylaws and measures, and report them to the Headquarters for approval before organizing the implementation within their respective jurisdictions. III. Making the Contract (Agreement) Database Sounder, and Improving the Efficiency of Dealing with Regular Debit Business The establishment of the contract (agreement) database is the basis for the paying banks to deal with regular debit business accurately and efficiently, and is the important basis for banks to confirm payments and to evade legal risks. Shanghai Head Office, all branches, business management departments, central sub-branches of provincial capital cities of the People's Bank shall, pursuant to the requirement on dealing with business, draft the coding standards for the contract (agreement) numbers of regular debit business within their respective jurisdictions and make such standards sounder, organize all banks to develop and construct contract (agreement) databases at their respective front-end systems, and urge all banks, enterprises and public institutions to do a good job in regulating, inputting and maintaining the contract numbers in regular debit business. A contract (agreement) number may be the number of the power of attorney upon strength of which the payer authorizes its bank of deposit to withhold money. Each banking financial institution shall, by the end of March 2007, finish building up the database of regular debit business contract (agreement) numbers, and coordinate with the depositing entities in doing a good job in inputting the regular debit business contract (agreement) numbers into the database. IV. Doing a Good Job in Bank-enterprise Interface Development, and Improving the Efficiency in Handling Business A good job shall be done for the interface development of the business handling system between banks and depositing entities. It is an important means to improve the business handling efficiency. At present, many enterprises and public institutions still choose the traditional method of submitting paper vouchers to the banks of deposit when handling the regular debit (credit) business in batches, and the banks need to input paper voucher information sum by sum, and then convert the information into electronic payment orders through the small-amount payment system. The procedures are redundant and the efficiency is very low. Each banking financial institution shall, in light of the features of handling the business through the small-amount payment system, coordinate with the depositing entities whose amount of business is large, develop the interface of bank-enterprise business handling system. The enterprises shall, by using magnetic medium or by the online way, submit the business data to the bank of deposit, so as to realize the electronic handling of the business data forwarding. V. Reforming the Method of Forwarding Invoices, and Facilitating the Handling of Business of Fee Charging Entities After the small-amount payment system has begun to work, the paper vouchers on the fee charges of public utilities shall be reserved in the collecting bank, but the fee charge invoices cannot be forwarded simultaneously. As the paying entity needs to make accounting treatment on the basis of the fee charge invoices and the confirmation list of the bank of deposit on deduction of the amount, the problem of forwarding the fee charge invoices to public utilities via the small-amount payment system must be resolved appropriately. Each branch of the People's Bank shall coordinate with the banking institution and the fee charging entity to choose the convenient, timely and economic method of forwarding fee charge invoices. The fee charging entity may forward fee charge invoices either by mail or by direct service, and may also have its bank of deposit forward the fee charge invoices via the local negotiable instrument exchange avenue. With regard to the features of electronic handling of the fee charge business on public utilities, each branch of the People's Bank shall actively coordinate with the local taxation authority to confirm the legal status of the substitutive fee charge invoices issued by the bank, so as to facilitate the business handling of both the collecting entity and the paying entity. VI. Canceling the Paper-based Forwarding of Specially Entrusted Local Collection, and Preventing Operational Risks At present, in some cities, the fee charges of public utilities and commonweal fee charges are handled in the method of specially entrusted local collection, while for the collection of trans-bank fees, the paper vouchers need to be forwarded via the negotiable instrument exchange to the payer's bank of deposit for check. There are many steps in the business, the efficiency is low, and some certain concealed risks exist. Shanghai Head Office, all branches, business management departments, central sub-branches of provincial capital cities of the People's Bank shall, in light of their respective local actual situations, coordinate with the banking financial institutions to, by July 1, 2007, cancel the method of paper-based forwarding under the specially entrusted local collection within their respective jurisdictions, and all the relevant business shall be handled through the regular debit business of the small-amount payment system. VII. Naturally Phasing out Local Clearing Systems The local clearing system at each locality has played a certain role in improving the local financial services and promoting the local economic development. After the operation for a number of years, some local clearing systems have reached or been close to the end of their lifecycle. Whereas the small-amount payment system may take the place of the local clearing system in respect of functional design, in order to integrate the payment and clearing service resources of the central bank, and avoid redundant construction and waste of resources, no new local clearing system shall be built up in any locality in the future without approval of the Headquarters of the central bank. The existing local clearing systems shall be phased out naturally, and those which have reached the end of the lifecycle shall be immediately stopped from work; those which have not reached the end of the lifecycle may still keep working under safe and stable conditions, but shall not be renovated or rebuilt. If any local clearing system continues working, the banking financial institution may, in light of the principle of market orientation, independently choose the local clearing system or the small-amount payment system to handle the payment business, and no entity or individual may intervene. VIII. Lowering the Fee Charge Rates for the System, and Mobilizing the Participants' Enthusiasm in Handling Business through the System The fee charge rates for the payment system business are an important benchmark to forward the prices of banking payment and clearing services, and an important factor to attract banking financial institutions to handle business through the payment system. The People's Bank decides to, as of January 1, 2007, lower the fee charge rates for banking financial institutions to handle payment business through the small-amount payment system, and to lower the benchmark price of micro-business packages from 5 Yuan/package into 0.5 Yuan/package, and meanwhile lower the price of each single sum of payment business; the fee charge refundment mechanism shall be started up, and the debit business fees shall be refunded to the return receipt initiating bank at a certain rate; the rates of surcharges at the peak time section shall be cancelled; the free-of-charge policies for commonweal payment through the small-amount payment system shall be realized gradually. See the annex for the specific fee charge rates. The rates for all banking financial institutions to charge fees from customers shall be governed by the "Notice of the State Planning Commission and the People's Bank of China on Making the Fee Charge Rates for Electronic Remittance and Transfer" (No. 791 [2001]). The items of business whose government-guidance prices are not yet clarified shall be independently determined by each banking financial institution in light of the principle of market orientation. IX. Bringing in the Incentive Mechanism, and Propelling the Development of the Small-amount Payment System Business In order to fully mobilize the enthusiasm of all participants, the system operators and the work management department, propel the development of the small-amount payment system business, the People's Bank will establish a mechanism for appraising the popularization of the small-amount payment system business. The Headquarters of the People's Bank will, at regular intervals, make statistics and circularize the business amounts handled by all banks in all localities through the small-amount payment system, and will practice corresponding preferential fee charges to the banking financial institutions whose business sums handled through the small-amount payment system within a certain period exceed a certain number. The Headquarters of the People's Bank shall include the work of organizing popularization of the small-amount payment system business and the business propaganda, which are carried out by Shanghai Head Office, all branches, business management departments, and central sub-branches of provincial capital cities, into the annual assessment. X. Strengthening Operational Management, and Guaranteeing the Safe and Stable Operation of the System Large-amount and small-amount payment systems are two main application systems of the modern payment system in China, and their safe and stable operation will directly affect the normal economic operation and the confidence of the public on the payment system. The operational management must be strengthened, and the operational maintenance mechanism must be improved so as to guarantee the safe and stable operation of the system. The payment system operation departments at each level shall be carefully on duty for operation of the small-amount payment system for 7¡Á24 hours, and earnestly implement the central bank's commitments on social services; they shall strictly implement the inspection tours on the system operation, check the main and spare machines of the payment system as well as the operation environment at regular intervals, so as to guarantee that the main and spare equipment of the system may work automatically by shift even in the case of a breakdown; the system of reporting the information on operation at regular intervals shall be adhered to, and the information on operation of the system shall be reported to the superior operation department and the work department in charge at regular intervals; the major problems, if any, shall also be reported in time; the emergency plan on the payment system shall be established and made sounder, drillings for responding to emergencies shall be organized at regular intervals, and the emergency disposal capacity of the system shall be enhanced. Annex: Fee Charge Rates of the Small-amount Payment System Business |
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