A Research On Legal Risk Management Of Third-party Online Payment

As the most prevailing new payment method, the third-party online payment developed based on internet and e-commerce has not only eliminated the trading restrictions on traditional payment method such as high trading cost, long time, and the requirement for short distance, but also offered credit intermediary service for both payment parties to address the problems of credit questioning during ordinary online payment. Despite being able to satisfy both parties’ requirement for convenience, reputation and safety, the third-party online payment still faces some legal risks. Once out of control, these legal risks will cause tremendous damages to the third-party payment agencies and users. As regards the effective management of legal risk of the third-party online payment, it will contribute to boosting not only the healthy development of the third-party payment industry but also the sustainable development of e-commerce in China.The third-party online payment is a new payment method that provides payment and settlement access for users according to the service agreement concluded by and between the creditable third-party payment agencies with strong economic strength and the commercial bank. According to different contractual agreements, the relationships of the rights and obligations have been established among the participants in the third-party online payment to provide legal basis for the ordered operation of the third-party payment. However, for a variety of reasons such as unclear value chain for benefit distribution, imperfect legal system, and user’s lack of credit consciousness, China’s third-party payment in growth stage is exposed to various legal risks. For instance, customer reserves and the uncertain ownership and application of its interest might lead to the risk of capital safety; the imperfect access system, exit system, and internal control system to liquidity risk; participant’s lack of credit to credit risk; the cooperative and competitive relationship between the third party and commercial bank to the risk of bank policy.The avoidable legal risks should be prevented in advance, and those unavoidable should be put under stronger control. As regards the legal risk of third-party online payment, on the basis of drawing on the mature experience from the United States and European Union with the actual condition of our country, these following measures should be taken:Specific to the risk of capital safety, China is supposed to establish a comprehensive regulatory system focused on the Central Bank, supported by China Banking Regulatory Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and supplemented by industrial associations, and besides, it is expected to improve the internal risk control system for the third-party payment agency. In terms of credit risk, it is necessary to improve user authentication system, and construct credit rating system and national credit system. Concerning the risk of bank policy, the third-party payment agency is required to upgrade their competitiveness while cooperating with the banks and the bank to maintain a partnership with the third-party agency while focusing on fair competition.