A Study On The Legal Issues Of Customer Deposit Of Payment Institutions

At present,e-commerce gets into the tens of thousands of households,third-party payment have been boomed,the number of customers and the size of funds have risen steadily.Take Alipay for example,in 2017,according to its bills,Alipay has 520 million existing users nationwide,of which mobile payment accounted for 82%.The media estimated that the online payment transaction volume reached 2085.0 trillion RMB in 2016,an increase of 3.3% over 2015 and the mobile payment scale in 2016 reached 157.6 trillion RMB,up 45.6% from 2015.Among them,the payment agencies take responsibility of handle the withdrawal of funds,hence there is huge financial settlement,also called,customer deposit.According to the "Filing of Non-Financial Institutions Deposits" column in the "2017 Monetary Authority Balance Sheet" of the People's Bank of China and the deposit ratio of payment institutions,it can be estimated that the scale of current customer deposit is about 600 billion RMB.Third-party payment has made great contributions to economic development and social life.In recent years,the third-party payment has been described by the media as one of the "New Four Great Inventions".Recently,regulators have introduced a number of systems for fund safety considerations to supervise customer prepaid deposit and will promote the construction of a network payment and settlement platform for non-bank payment agencies(hereinafter referred to as the network-linked platform)in order to complete the preparation of customer deposit centralized depository and appropriation of funds,in response to customer recharge,withdrawals,transfer,investment and other needs.At the moment,the regulatory documents make it clear that customer deposit is not owned by the non-bank payment agencies but are owned by the customer.However,this provision is still facing the question of property law,because departmental rules and regulations can not create property rights.Therefore,customer deposit ownership still need to be unified in the monetary system of ownership of money.On this basis,the right to use customer deposit funds and legal fruits should all considered on a complete logical basis,which should be coordinated with the current payment practices and regulatory requirements.Further,when payment services have profoundly affected the life of the nation,consideration should be given to giving bankruptcy protection in addition to customer deposit.Under the guidance of this idea,besides the introduction and conclusion,the paper consists of the following four parts.Chapter One.Defining the nature of customer deposit.First introducing the concept of customer deposit and the process of production,and estimating the scale of customer deposit.Second,researching the ownership of customer deposit.Customer deposit fund ownership is the logical basis for all the issues covered in the article,and existing regulatory documents make it clear that the deposits are owned by the customer.But this rule requires a logical,self-consistent legal system in the currency of money ownership.The customer deposit is reserved in the name of the payment institution,and is separated from the own property account of the payment institution in case of confusion of funds,so the "possession equals possession" principle of monetary funds can not be simply applied.After comparing various theories,the article argues that customer deposit is owned by customer-self as the subject of the custody contract within the framework of the consumer custody contract.Chapter Two.Studying the customer right to use deposit.Based on the safe custody contract,the parties may negotiate whether to authorize the custodian to use the safeguards.At present,the use of customer deposit has been severely restricted.Large capital deposits will cause inefficiency and affect the liquidity arrangements of payment agencies and banks.To this end,the person in charge of the People's Bank of China answered the reporter,making it clear that the payment agencies can use the customer deposit on day-to-day time,but should make the money supply ends at the end of the day.Based on the experience of extra-territories and the analysis of the operation of payment agencies and service costs,the article suggests that customerscan authorize payment agencies to use deposit funds within a reasonable range through prior consultation.Chapter Three.Studying the fruits of customer deposit attribution.Article 35 of the Interim Measures for Deposit Preparedness Payment for Customers in Depository Institutions(Draft for Soliciting Opinions)has adopted some scholars 'suggestions and learned some experiences from the United States to take part of the interest income from customers' prepaid deposits as the legal income of payment institutions.However,the clause was deleted from the official document and the vested interest returned to the fuzzy state.The article holds the opinion that the custody contract parties can negotiate the decision to vested fruits attribution.At the same time,according to Coase theorem,the property right system with the lowest transaction cost should be designed to achieve the optimal allocation of resources.The return of the deposit or the average distribution of the deposit will result in huge operating and service costs,and the negotiation between the client and the payment agency will also pay cost.At this point,the allocation of deposit to payment agencies will be the better arrangement.This arrangement should also be subject to the outcome of the parties' consultation.Chapter Four.Studying the bankruptcy protection for customer deposit.According to the regulatory orientation,when the payment institution goes bankrupt,the client owns the ownership of the client's deposit funds and shall be protected directly by the right of withdrawal.However,in practice,customers bear the risk directly,it's difficult for them to get paid.The person in charge of the People's Bank of China believes that the client should bear the risk of bankruptcy.The scale of the current customer deposit funds is huge,and it has exposed wide range of impact,so the protection of the rights and interests of customers should be enhanced.The article argues that the logic of ownership and custody contracts based on customer deposit should confirm that customer deposit payments are protected to the same extent as deposits in the event of bankruptcy.That is,in the event of bankruptcy,customers should have the priority reimbursement over other creditors.