Breaking news! Today, all Meituan’s apps were removed from the App Store! What is the reason?

Just now, the top APP promotion company suddenly discovered that all the applications developed by Meituan were removed from the shelves. Did this offend the App Store? Currently, the top promotion team is analyzing the situation and has also received some news online: It is rumored that Meituan Payment’s unlicensed operation has been stopped by the Central Bank! Is this the reason why the App Store removed all Meituan products? Our friends at Meituan have suffered a lot, so let’s first understand some of the channel performances of Meituan being removed from the shelves.

The following picture shows all the apps owned by Meituan developers:

The following is a screenshot of the Meituan app that was removed from the shelves today:

The editor of Top Promotion selected some Meituan keywords "Meituan" and " Maoyan Movie ", but Meituan could not be seen in the search results.

As shown below, search for keywords: Meituan

Mobile app store search screenshot:

As shown below, search for keywords: Maoyan Movie

Mobile app store search screenshot:

Meituan was suddenly removed from the shelves today. The editor of Top Promotion got the news that on June 16 this year, the news that "Meituan Payment's unlicensed operation was stopped by the Central Bank and it was given three months to rectify the situation!" was exposed on the Internet.

The incident dates back to February this year, when Meituan Pay was reported by a lawyer under his real name for operating without a license. On the 16th, a source revealed that the central bank had recently summoned and stopped Meituan Payment, and ordered Meituan to take the payment function offline for rectification within three months.

Meituan Pay was reported by a lawyer for operating without a license

TechWeb discovered that the recharge function of Meituan Wallet has been offline. When opening the wallet balance, it shows "returned to the original route" and recharge is not possible. On the payment page, Meituan Pay has been folded but has not been taken offline yet.

The recharge function of Meituan Wallet has been offline

According to relevant media reports , Meituan launched its own payment business "Meituan Pay" in a low-key manner a year ago. Meituan Pay is on par with Alipay and WeChat Pay . Meituan stimulates users to use Meituan Pay through subsidies.

At the end of February this year, a lawyer made a real-name report to the People's Bank of China and other institutions, pointing out that Meituan was operating online payment settlement business without a third-party payment license, which violated my country's "Management Measures for Payment Services of Non-financial Institutions" and was an illegal operation.

At that time, TechWeb reported on whether Meituan Payment had violated regulations. In the Meituan APP at that time, business sections such as food, movies, hotels, and takeout had been connected to "bank card payment", with words such as "instant discount of 2 yuan", "Meituan recommended", "supports savings cards and credit cards, no need to open online banking", and folded the Alipay payment and WeChat payment options.

According to the verification at that time, the "bank card payment" recommended by Meituan was not quick payment or online banking payment, but it induced users to bind their bank savings cards or credit cards to the Meituan wallet and make payments directly through Meituan.

After entering the card number, name, ID card, mobile phone number and other information, the editor bound an Industrial and Commercial Bank of China [0.23% Fund Research Report] savings card to the Meituan account, but during the entire payment process, it did not jump to the online banking page.

After binding the bank card, return to "Meituan Wallet" and the page that appears is similar to WeChat Pay, with options such as "Bank Card", "Account Balance", and "Payment Code". Among them, the options of "Recharge" and "Withdraw" also appear in the "Account Balance" column.

Lawyer Xiong Wanli, who filed a real-name complaint against Meituan, pointed out that "during this process, the funds were paid from the user to the Meituan account, and then from the Meituan account to the merchant account. Meituan actually transferred funds between the two parties of the transaction and illegally carried out fund payment and settlement business without obtaining a payment license."

At that time, Meituan responded to the media, saying, "This statement is a confusion of concepts. Meituan.com does not provide payment and settlement services for any third party other than the Meituan platform."

Meituan and the whistleblower had argued over whether Meituan's business operations constituted third-party payment and whether they violated the Payment Service Management Measures, with each side holding its own opinion.

However, according to the list of licensed institutions released by the central bank, there are a total of 267 companies in my country that have obtained third-party payment licenses, and Meituan is indeed not on the list.

On the 16th, a source revealed that the central bank had recently summoned and stopped Meituan Payment, and the recharge function of Meituan Wallet has been taken offline. However, on Meituan’s purchase and payment page, the Meituan payment function is simply folded up and has not been taken offline yet. Sources revealed that the central bank has given Meituan a three-month deadline to rectify the situation.

The suspension of Meituan Payment by the central bank also means that Meituan’s strategy to develop consumer finance through payment has encountered obstacles.

In fact, the third-party payment license has become one of the most sought-after licenses in the entire Internet industry. Since the end of 2015, the central bank has suspended the acceptance and issuance of applications for Alipay licenses, which has caused the price of payment licenses to rise. According to Southern Weekend, the current market price of a payment license is between 250 million and 480 million yuan.

As of press time, Meituan has not responded to the Central Bank's interview and suspension order.

The author of this article is @青瓜传媒. It is compiled and published by (青瓜传媒). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

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