Mobile payment impact equipment manufacturers take advantage of financial technology to “overtake on the curve”?

With the rapid development of mobile payment, people use cash less frequently, and the use of cash related financial equipment such as ATM gradually decreases. Financial equipment companies are looking for new breakthroughs. < p > < p > < p > the reporter of China business daily sorted out the performance of several listed financial equipment manufacturers and found that in 2019 and the first quarter of 2020, several enterprises generally experienced a decline in net profit. At the same time, the business plans disclosed by several enterprises show that they are making efforts in the direction of overseas business and financial technology. Huang Dazhi, a senior researcher at Suning Financial Research Institute, told reporters that with the decrease of the OTC rate of banks, more business will be handled on intelligent terminals, which brings opportunities for financial equipment manufacturers in the direction of intelligence. However, some entities hope to make efforts in the direction of the central bank’s digital currency, which may not be reflected in profits in the short term. Recently, the financial equipment company Yuyin (002177. SZ) released a semi annual report. The data showed that the company realized a total operating revenue of 110 million yuan, an increase of 19.70%, a total profit of 29 million yuan, a decrease of 58% compared with the same period of last year, and the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 25 million yuan, down 55.76% compared with the same period of last year. With regard to the company’s performance, the board of directors of Yuyin said in its business review that with the large-scale popularization of mobile payment and the wide coverage of cash free scenarios, the frequency of traditional cash transactions has been reduced, and the demand for cash financial independent equipment has been reduced. < p > < p > in addition, broadcast and television Express (002152. SZ) also faces a similar situation. According to its first quarter report, the company’s first quarter operating income was 1.142 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 10.41%; the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 144 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 28.15%; the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies after deducting non recurring profit and loss was 115 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 34.78%. < p > < p > < p > the reporter has noticed that radio and television express is opening up overseas markets. For example, recently, its subsidiaries signed financial self-service equipment purchase and sales contracts with Greek and Mexican enterprises, with the contract amount accounting for 1.69% of the audited operating income of radio and television express in 2019. The company also said through the financial report that it will further accelerate the process of international development in the future. However, due to the global attention and rapid development of mobile payment, will the market scale of overseas financial equipment shrink? In addition, in the face of competition from local enterprises, what are the advantages of domestic equipment? In this regard, Alibaba cloud MVP Ma Chao told our reporter that the current overseas network coverage rate is lower than that in China, and consumers still need cash for emergencies, so the penetration rate of mobile payment is not as good as that in China. In addition, the improvement of network coverage requires many aspects of construction and cooperation, so it will take a long time for the popularity of overseas mobile payment to be promoted to a level that does not require cash at all. In other words, the overseas demand for cash financial equipment will not disappear in the short term. The domestic cash financial equipment has been forward-looking in terms of technology and product design, and has a greater competitive advantage in overseas. Ma Chao believes that due to the decline in the demand for cash pure financial equipment, equipment manufacturers have a better way to integrate the equipment with other scenarios, such as the registration machine of medical institutions, the acceptance of tax or government affairs, as well as station calling equipment. As for domestic business, Huang Dazhi, a senior researcher at Suning Financial Research Institute, said that with the gradual decrease of the OTC rate of banks, more business will be handled on intelligent terminals. This brings opportunities to financial equipment manufacturers. Especially with the increasing demand for intelligence, convenience, combination and aggregation, the market in this area has actually increased. < p > < p > the reporter noted that on the same day of publishing the semi annual report, Yuyin also issued an announcement saying that due to the needs of business development, the company’s wholly-owned subsidiary Guangzhou Yuyin Financial Service Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Yuyin finance”) has changed its company name, business scope and registered address. After the change, the name of the company is Guangzhou Yuyin Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., and the main project category is software and information technology service industry. In addition, some financial equipment companies have changed the abbreviation of securities from “finance” to “technology”. < p > < p > the reporter noted that not every direction of specific products has a good prospect. For example, Yuyin has tried to develop smart teller machines, but the scale of such devices has not been successfully expanded due to the weak demand for cash. Subsequently, it began to provide more professional technical services such as equipment technology upgrading. In addition, Yuyin also said it was developing digital currency software wallet and hardware wallet. In its annual report, it disclosed in its 2019 business plan that it would expand the transformation business of the bank’s smart outlets in the future; at the same time, it would explore the application of big data and artificial intelligence technology in risk prevention and control, customer experience, business transaction, security operation and maintenance, etc. On the one hand, the company has been committed to the research of blockchain technology since 2016, and established the blockchain Technology Co., Ltd. in May 2018. So far, the company has developed a supply chain financial platform, an integral platform, a goods based storage platform, and an intelligent lock system based on blockchain technology. On the other hand, for digital currency, the company’s main research direction is the exchange between digital currency on self-service equipment and bank account currency, which is still in the research and development stage. < p > < p > for this direction of digital currency, Ma Chao believes that the central bank’s digital currency does bring opportunities to financial equipment manufacturers. Because it will support offline transactions and can be controlled anonymously, it means that the acceptance of DCEP will require special hardware equipment support, which will stimulate the social demand for financial equipment. Huang Dazhi said that the positioning of digital currency is not to replace third-party payment, but as an additional supplement. For financial equipment manufacturers, it can be studied in advance, but it is difficult to imagine that it will produce commercial value in the near future. Huang Dazhi further said that the specific reasons why it is difficult to reflect the commercial value in the near future are: on the one hand, the digital currency is still in the internal testing stage, and it is not known how long it will take to popularize the digital currency to every consumer; on the other hand, a single device can be hundreds of yuan less or thousands of yuan more. For businesses or institutions, it needs to pay the cost of converting payment equipment Users also need to adapt to the cost. These factors have restrained the growth of equipment demand.