Alipay’s Consumer Loan Service Provider Huabei to Access Credit Information System
Recently, a number of users of Ant Check Later or Huabei, a consumer credit product of Alipay, reported that they have received an upgrade prompt which requires users to agree to allow the company to access their financial credit information. If users do not choose to upgrade, it may affect the use of the service.
Launched in April 2015, Huabei serves as a virtual credit card so that users and enjoy post-payment shopping experience. When users shops, they can advance the quota of Huabei and repay the payment on the 9th of the next month after confirming the receipt. The interest-free period can be up to 41 days.
What needs to know is that many users choose to use Huabei because even if it is overdue occasionally, some functions of Alipay which users won’t pay much attention to will be affected. But now Huabei has started to access credit information in batches, commercial banks and credit financial institutions have richer dimensions when evaluating user qualifications.
Huabei responded that, under the premise of user authorization, the relevant information of end users will be gradually incorporated into the credit information system. By maintaining good usage habits, users’ credit records will not be affected. If there is any objection after the authorization, users can terminate it by closing Huabei.
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Last year, Huabei began to promote its efforts of accessing the credit information system. On June 3 of this year, Chongqing Ant Consumption Finance Co., Ltd. was approved by China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission to begin accessing end users’ credit histories. Huabei is also included in the company and needs to submit relevant credit information of its users to the credit information system just like any other licensed financial institution.
Ant Group was called in for a regulatory meeting by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) in April. “Ant must cut any improper connection between Alipay and other financial products, such as Huabei and Jiebei, and to fix irregular practices such as embedding credit business in payment links,” the PBOC said.
Huabei released a notice through its official Weibo account on Wednesday, saying that credit information is one of the core bases for financial institutions to evaluate their users’ ability to repay when providing services to them. On the premise of obtaining user authorization, users’ information related to Huabei will be gradually incorporated into the credit investigation system, including account opening date, credit line, use of credit line and repayment situation, among other items.
In terms of frequency, the account information from Huabei will be summarized and incorporated into the credit investigation system on a monthly basis, without specific consumption information such as content and time.
At present, some users can check their credit records held by Huabei in their credit reports. The data of Huabei shows that more than 99% of its users have records in good standing.
