China has introduced new policies to further regulate the service fees charged by online trading platforms to operators within their platforms, including commissions, percentages, membership fees, technical service fees, information service fees, and marketing promotion fees.
According to China News Service, reporters learned on Saturday (August 2) that China’s State Administration for Market Regulation has issued and implemented the "Compliance Guidelines for Fee Practices of Online Trading Platforms."
The "Guidelines" clarify the principles that platform fees should follow, advocate reducing the burden on operators within the platforms, strengthen platform compliance self-regulation, and standardize platform fee practices; platforms are required to implement the main responsibility of compliance management, improve compliance management organizations, assign compliance management personnel, promptly internalize regulatory systems into compliance systems, establish mechanisms for identifying and assessing risks of unreasonable fees, strengthen the establishment of mechanisms for compliance pre-audit to prevent the risks of unreasonable fees, enhance compliance training, and foster a culture of compliance.
The "Guidelines" specify the obligation for platforms to publish fee rules. Platforms are required to continuously display the content of the platform fee service agreement and transaction rule information in a prominent position on the homepage. Platforms must publicly seek opinions when modifying fee rules according to the law. The guidelines also specify the storage duration for historical versions of fee rules, requiring the complete preservation of all historical versions from the three years prior to the effective date of each updated version.
The "Guidelines" stipulate that platforms may not repeatedly charge operators within the platform, may not charge but fail to provide service or provide insufficient service, may not transfer expenses that should be borne by the platform itself, may not charge operators within the platform for providing them with their basic operation data, may not force or covertly force operators within the platform to purchase services or participate in promotional activities and charge for them, may not use unreasonable forms of security deposit to covertly charge or raise fee standards, and may not implement price discrimination among platform operators with identical transaction conditions, among other practices.
The "Guidelines" clarify the principles that platform fees should follow, advocate reducing the burden on operators within the platforms, strengthen platform compliance self-regulation, and standardize platform fee practices; platforms are required to implement the main responsibility of compliance management, improve compliance management organizations, assign compliance management personnel, promptly internalize regulatory systems into compliance systems, establish mechanisms for identifying and assessing risks of unreasonable fees, strengthen the establishment of mechanisms for compliance pre-audit to prevent the risks of unreasonable fees, enhance compliance training, and foster a culture of compliance.
The "Guidelines" specify the obligation for platforms to publish fee rules. Platforms are required to continuously display the content of the platform fee service agreement and transaction rule information in a prominent position on the homepage. Platforms must publicly seek opinions when modifying fee rules according to the law. The guidelines also specify the storage duration for historical versions of fee rules, requiring the complete preservation of all historical versions from the three years prior to the effective date of each updated version.
The "Guidelines" stipulate that platforms may not repeatedly charge operators within the platform, may not charge but fail to provide service or provide insufficient service, may not transfer expenses that should be borne by the platform itself, may not charge operators within the platform for providing them with their basic operation data, may not force or covertly force operators within the platform to purchase services or participate in promotional activities and charge for them, may not use unreasonable forms of security deposit to covertly charge or raise fee standards, and may not implement price discrimination among platform operators with identical transaction conditions, among other practices.