Article Zhang Yang Lin Xiaxi
Editor ?Xing Yun
Recently, banks have been in constant trouble.
The focus of contradictions in the brokerage company Xiaoguo Culture.
There are only 60,000 investors involved in the Crude Oil Treasure Incident, and bank flow is not strictly controlled. It only involves you and him who are willing to take advantage of the situation.
This wave of operations has really opened up the bank’s internal control problems and lack of customer trust. At present, the Shanghai Banking and Insurance Regulatory Bureau has intervened in the investigation.
01
The supporting role becomes the protagonist
In the contract termination battle between the swimming pool and Xiaoguo Culture, the first one to fall was CITIC Bank.
Chizi and Xiaoguo Culture's "breakup" was originally just one example of many conflicts between artists and managers over the termination of contracts.
The main character that everyone is enjoying has also become China CITIC Bank.
According to Chi, in order to "meet the requirements of major customers", CITIC Bank provided personal account information to Xiaoguo Culture without my request or permission.
Although Xiaoguo Culture countered that Chizi participated in commercial activities without permission, he entrusted lawyers to handle the economic disputes between the two parties, and took legal actions such as property preservation, arbitration, and evidence collection, all in carried out within the framework of law and contract.
However, CITIC Bank admitted its violations in its reply in the early morning of May 7. Xiaoguo Culture did contact the branch of the bank where the account was opened (Hongkou Branch), requesting to inquire about the payment for the pool. Regarding labor wage records, bank employees did not strictly follow the prescribed procedures to provide the collection records of the pool.
China CITIC Bank punished the relevant employees, removed them from the position of president of the branch, and solemnly apologized to Chizi.
But this is not the end of the matter. This wave of operations by China CITIC Bank has shown a lower limit. In order to serve big customers, illegally leaking customer personal account transaction details is basically not equivalent to "streaking" for ordinary people.
In banks, big customers are basically "gods". A bank account manager told this reporter that there are more or less customer behaviors caused by performance pressure among bank branches, and large customers naturally have their own advantages.
In April 2019, after Xiaoguo Culture completed Series B financing, two new shareholders were added, and the registered capital increased from 1.8354 million yuan to 1.8921 million yuan. At that time, the media reported that Xiaoguo Culture’s new valuation was approximately With an investment of 3 billion yuan, it is a veritable "big customer".
A staff member of a certain city commercial bank analyzed that the bank statements are made at the counter, so large customers need to find someone at the president level to check their bank statements, and then the president will go to the teller to do the operation. The teller can choose to agree or refuse. It depends on personal choice, but refusal may indeed be suppressed.
According to the relevant departments of our city, the teller only needs to check the customer's transaction history in the system based on the other party's name and ID number, and will not leave any traces (each bank's system may Different), if what is queried is a personal relationship, although this behavior is strictly speaking illegal, it is unlikely to cause problems, and it is regarded as the "default rule" in the industry.
The above-mentioned bank staff analyzed, "Once it is printed, the nature is different, let alone an official seal."
Based on the conflict between the two parties, Xiaoguo Culture asked CITIC Bank to withdraw Chizi’s bank statements, most likely to prove that Chizi had participated in other commercial performances and received remuneration, or to prove that they had paid Chizi in full Performance fees.
But no matter what the purpose, a key question is, can the bank flow obtained through this illegal behavior be used as evidence of Xiaoguo Culture in economic disputes?
A practicing lawyer in this city told reporters that it is rare in our country that evidence is invalid directly due to problems in the evidence collection process. This is a procedural justice approach, and European and American countries attach greater importance to criminal cases. , and China attaches more importance to the justice of the result. As long as the evidence helps to ascertain the facts, it will generally not be deemed invalid.
An executive judge of the Enforcement Tribunal of the Municipal Intermediate People’s Court said that the court will also conduct investigation and confirmation based on the materials. If the materials are true, they have probative force and can be used as evidence. However, the card issuer (bank) will be punished.
02
Not the first time
This is not the first time that CITIC Bank has leaked customer information, and it is not new in China.
Robin Li once said, "Most Chinese people are willing to trade privacy for convenience, and data can be collected with the user's permission."
His words made people angry and made him scolded, but it was just scolding, because for the company, customers are like meat on the plate.
This is the business environment we live in. Customer privacy is a drop in the bucket compared to what companies can gain from selling customer information.
Chizi has 4 million fans and can expose on Weibo that China CITIC Bank leaked customer information to please big customers, but most ordinary people don’t even know that their information has been leaked, let alone protect their rights.
In fact, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and the Central Bank have been strictly restricting banks from leaking customer information. Once banks violate regulations, they will be punished.
A document issued by China CITIC Bank shows that from January 1, 2014 to August 31, 2017, CITIC Bank’s subsidiaries and branches were subject to administrative penalties by the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and the Central Bank in the past three years. Since more than 150 cases, the cumulative amount of fines has reached 110 million yuan.
Some of these penalties stem from disclosing customer information.
In 2014, China CITIC Bank Shijiazhuang Branch was fined 60,000 yuan for inquiring about the credit report of a customer's affiliated enterprise without obtaining written authorization from the information subject as required. The same operation as this is to query Chizhou bank statements.
Although it was punished, CITIC Bank did not learn from it. Later, Shijiazhuang Branch, Taiyuan Branch, Tianjin Branch, and Xiamen Branch still inquired about customer credit or credit information for others, and were fined 50,000 each. Yuan.
It is impossible for banks not to know that leaking customer information is illegal, but they still have the motivation to do so. Compared with the hundreds of millions of yuan in deposits they have obtained from large customers, a mere fine of 50,000 yuan may not be considered. What.
In addition to leaking personal or corporate information, CITIC Bank has also been fined for many other violations.
In February 2020, the Beijing Banking Regulatory Bureau issued a fine of 20.2 million yuan to China CITIC Bank, including misappropriating working credit funds to enter real estate development companies, misappropriating personal operating loan funds for house purchases, and violating regulations. Provide financing to real estate companies to pay for land acquisition, etc.
Under the policy of housing for living, not for speculation, banks try to provide financing for real estate companies, even at the expense of illegal operations, but there is still a word of profit behind it.
Wind data shows that CITIC Bank has been in a relatively stable state of growth in recent years, especially in the past 2019. CITIC Bank’s revenue and attributable net profit were 187.584 billion yuan and 48.015 billion yuan respectively, a year-on-year increase The speeds are 13.79 and 7.87 respectively.
Compared with the five major banks, CITIC Bank’s revenue in 2019 was approximately 1/5 of the number one Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, but its growth rate has exceeded that of the five major banks.
After this wave of operations, I don’t know if CITIC Bank’s crisis of trust will bring a counterattack to its performance.
03
The road to personal rights protection is full of difficulties
Ding Yijian, a lawyer at Guangdong Shengma Law Firm, told the "Metropolitan Express" reporter: "CITIC Bank's behavior It has constituted the crime of personal information infringement. Chizi can also pursue CITIC Bank's responsibility for privacy infringement and breach of deposit and savings contracts and demand compensation. "
Ding Yijian feels that the best way to defend his rights is to directly file CITIC Bank's responsibility. Go to court.
If Chi pursues CITIC Bank's criminal responsibility, according to Article 253 of the "Criminal Law", if it violates relevant national regulations and sells or provides citizens' personal information to others, and the circumstances are serious, it will be sentenced to three years. The following: fixed-term imprisonment or criminal detention, and concurrently or solely a fine; if the circumstances are particularly serious, the offender shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years, and shall also be fined. Anyone who violates relevant national regulations, obtains citizens’ personal information in the process of performing duties or providing services, and sells or provides it to others shall be severely punished in accordance with the provisions of the preceding paragraph.
In the United States, similar cases are usually completed through class actions. In 2018, 500 million customer information of Marriott Hotels was leaked. A few hours later, Marriott Hotels was filed with a class action lawsuit claiming US$12.5 billion. Each affected customer Each person gets $25.
Class action lawsuits allow the company that leaked the information to compensate all victims, so the compensation amount is usually large and attracts the active participation of lawyers. Currently, China does not have a class action system like the United States, but there are systems similar to ****suits and representative actions.
At present, a better way is to use consumer rights protection organizations, administrative agencies or procuratorates as representatives to file public interest litigation against companies that leak information.
my country’s first personal information public interest litigation was a consumer civil public interest litigation filed by the Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Rights Protection Committee against Beijing Baidu Netcom Technology Co., Ltd. for allegedly illegally obtaining consumers’ personal information and related issues.
In January 2018, the Nanjing Intermediate People’s Court formally filed the case, but two months later, in view of Baidu’s rectification of the app, the Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Rights Protection Commission applied to withdraw the case.
Regarding the issue of information leakage, the compensation received for personal rights protection is not proportional to the energy invested in litigation, resulting in most people choosing to swallow their anger.
Banking relies on trust. Customers trust banks with their deposits, transaction information and identity information, and CITIC Bank's manipulation of this trust is making this trust a thing of the past.