Research On The Main Legal Relationship Of The Third Party Payment

The third-party payment is a new way for e-commerce, which could effectively solve the problem of lack of credibility under traditional trading environment. It is an important way of payment in modern payment system accompanied by the development of e-commerce. As at September 2015, there were 270 companies approved to have licenses of third-party payment.The rapid development of the third-party payment caused attention from government. The People’s Bank of China issued a series of rules and regulations to supervise and control the use of third-party payment, such as Regulations of Payment Services Provided by Non-financial Institutions. All kinds of legal issues about third-party payment had attracted attention of professional field, including the legal relationship among main parties of third-party payment, which is one of the hot issues of many scholars. Different people held different point of views as regard to that issue, and there is still no conclusion. This paper attempts to explain the process of third-party payment, and disassemble the process into behaviors, in order to analyze the legal relationship in each individual. Finally explain the legal relationship among main parties of third-party payment in the whole process.This paper is divided into four main parts. First of all, briefly introduces the concept, classification and main process of third-party payment. Secondly, illustrate the main parties and their legal relationship according to the process of third-party payment, and indicate the legal relationship among other parties except for the user and payment institution. The third part briefly introduces the current theories of legal relationship between users and third-party payment institutions, and makes comment on them. Lastly, the author puts forward his own theory for the legal relationship between users and third-party payment institutions based on the analysis of existing theories and the main process of third-party payment.