Chongqing Kunpeng Payment (重庆鲲鹏支付), a licensed acquirer formerly known as Qianbao Payment (钱宝支付), apologised on November 4 after merchants reported that POS and aggregate collection trades marked as successful were stuck in settlement for days. The Economic Observer saw merchants from Henan, Wuhan, Chongqing and Shenzhen at the firm’s Liangjiang New Area headquarters that day seeking unpaid funds.
Kunpeng said the delay came from weaknesses in its clearing schedule, payout chain and internal risk controls. It formed a working group to check unpaid trades one by one and pay out in batches, and opened a registration channel for merchants. The People’s Bank of China Chongqing branch said it had set up a dedicated complaint desk at Kunpeng’s office after receiving inquiries. Jiemian News cited Black Cat complaints with examples such as three October 28 trades totaling 20,950 yuan still unpaid by November 3, and three late-October trades totaling 59,377 yuan still unpaid by November 4.
Kunpeng holds a national bank-card acquiring licence from 2011 and registered capital of 3 billion yuan, mainly for offline POS to small and mid-size merchants. Jiemian reported that about 47.47 million yuan of its equity was frozen by a court in September 2026, that it was among seven payment firms barred from adding merchants for 90 days in November 2025, and that the PBOC Chongqing branch fined and confiscated 9.1435 million yuan from it in March 2026 for 11 violations. PBOC acquiring rules require settlement on the agreed schedule and, except for suspected illegal trades, no later than 30 calendar days after the payer’s instruction takes effect.
- Apology and working group announced November 4
- PBOC Chongqing branch opened an on-site complaint desk the same day
- Registered capital 3 billion yuan; national acquiring licence since 2011
Why it matters: Settlement delay at a mid-tier licensed acquirer hits merchant cash flow directly and spreads through agent channels that sell POS terminals. The on-site complaint desk shows the local PBOC branch is treating unpaid settlement as a consumer-protection case. Other small acquirers that run thin liquidity buffers and long agent chains face the same pressure when risk checks and payouts bunch together.
Sources: 经济观察报 Economic Observer, November 5, 2026; 界面新闻 Jiemian News, November 5, 2026; 观点网 Guandian, November 5, 2026 (Chinese-language sources, translated)
Image: Ominae, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
