Recently, Maverick Online, the largest P2P online lending institution in Shenzhen that has been in operation for more than 6 years, issued a benign exit announcement and announced its withdrawal from the online loan industry. As soon as the news came out, he quickly searched on Weibo and read hundreds of millions of readings. However, this seemingly "surprised" news is not sudden. In the past two years, the operating environment of the online lending industry has deteriorated, the lender ’s investment risk and the operating risk of the platform have increased, and the impact of the new coronary pneumonia epidemic has increased the future uncertainty. Major online lending platforms have gradually withdrawn-online lending faces "shutdown tide".
"If you can retreat, you should retreat, you should do everything." This is the tone of China's current strong supervision and rectification of online lending. Since the beginning of this year, efforts to guide the withdrawal and transformation of online loan institutions have also increased. In March alone, four provincial-level administrative regions of Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Jilin, and Heilongjiang successively announced that they would ban all online lending institutions within their jurisdiction. Earlier, Shandong, Hunan, Sichuan, Chongqing and many other places also announced that they would ban Internet lending institutions under their jurisdiction.
Under this trend, for lenders, how should they face the "shutdown tide" of online loans? How to protect yourself?
What does a compliant online loan look like
Withering is perhaps the most accurate description of the current status of the online loan industry. This has to make people think, what kind of online lending institutions meet the standards?
"Online lending institutions should comply with the requirements of the" Interim Measures for the Management of Business Activities of Online Lending Information Intermediaries ", as information intermediaries provide small and micro enterprises and individuals with loan matching, and daily operation and management actions do not touch the 13 provisions of the" Interim Measures ". "Red Line '." Dong Ximiao, a special researcher at the National Finance and Development Laboratory, said: "But in fact, there are few online loan institutions that meet the above requirements."
It can be seen that after three years of exploration, in the "Interim Measures for Liquidity Loan Management", "Interim Measures for Personal Loan Management", "Interim Measures for Fixed Asset Loan Management" and "Guidelines for Project Financing Business" On the basis, in 2019, the supervisory authorities issued a series of supervisory policies on P2P online loans, forming a relatively complete and unified supervisory regulation system.
"The compliance online loan institutions defined by the supervisory authorities have the following standards." Ouyang Rihui, deputy dean of the China Internet Economics Research Institute of the Central University of Finance and Economics, said that in terms of paid-in registered capital, many operating institutions nationwide paid in a lot of registered capital In 500 million yuan. In terms of shareholder requirements, legal person shareholders have been operating continuously for more than 5 years, and have continued to make profits for three fiscal years. Their net assets have reached more than 30% of their total assets. The equity investment balance does not exceed 50% of their net assets. More than one platform to be filed. In terms of certain risk reserves and risk compensation requirements, the national operating agency shall pay a certain risk reserve at a fixed ratio of 3% of the matching business balance, and shall propose borrower risk compensation based on 6% of each borrower ’s loan amount gold. In terms of business development requirements, it is required to standardize innovative business and meet regulatory requirements.
In addition, online lending institutions should establish and improve their own risk isolation system, institutional governance system, and risk exit system; real-time data should be connected to the National Internet Emergency Response Center, and to credit reference agencies such as the central bank's credit reference, Baixing credit reference, etc.
"The regulatory requirements require that transformation and development and benign withdrawal are the main work directions. Except for some strictly compliant operating institutions, the rest of the institutions can retreat and should be shut down. Guide the vast majority of organizations through voluntary liquidation, suspension of business or exit. Transformation and other development methods to achieve clear risk. "Ouyang Rihui said.
"For institutions that are seriously in violation of the regulations and unable to withdraw benignly, they may face the fate of being banned and intervened by the public security and economic investigation department." Zhang Yexia, president of the Institute of Home Loan Research.
Will all disappear
After "retreat and transformation" as the keynote, will all online lending institutions disappear in the future?
At the beginning of this year, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the High-Quality Development of the Banking and Insurance Industry", once again clearly "resolutely curbing incremental risks and steadily resolving stock risks" and "deeply carry out special rectification of Internet financial risks to promote non-compliance The benign exit of online lending institutions "... In the eyes of many industry insiders, this gives clearer expectations for the regulatory thinking and development direction of the online loan industry in 2020.
At the end of April, the video and teleconference on the special rectification of Internet finance and online lending risk jointly held by the Mutual Gold Remediation Leading Group and the Online Loan Remediation Leading Group pointed out that, in accordance with the relevant work deployment of the State Council, strive to basically complete the special rectification of Internet finance and online loan risk in 2020 The main goal task.
In the view of many industry insiders, this may mean that this year will become the deadline for the withdrawal and transformation of online loans.
"Online lending institutions are dominated by withdrawals, and a few institutions can be transformed into consumer finance companies, online small loan companies, etc., but they must meet the corresponding qualification requirements or have the corresponding capabilities." Dong Ximiao said, taking online small loans as an example, its entry threshold Higher, with higher requirements for the main sponsor, registered capital, and senior management team, and mainly for lending with its own funds, few online loan institutions are qualified. As a formal financial institution, consumer finance companies have higher thresholds.
According to Zhang Yexia, according to the working schedule of the pilot small loan transformation, a small number of compliance platforms will be transformed into regional small loan companies or online small loan companies under the guidance of supervision. As the industry clears up, the head platform will maintain operations and Survival will accelerate the transformation, or will continue to accelerate the introduction of institutional funds, develop loan assistance business, or transform financial technology to provide technical support for the output of risk control and post-loan management of licensed financial institutions such as banks, or apply for online small loan licenses to seek Compliance development.
In other words, the "license" may become a crucial step in determining the life and death of online lending institutions. In fact, the problem of "licenseless driving" in the financial sector has become a regulatory focus. The goals and tasks of the special rectification of Internet finance and online loan risks in 2020 include: continuing to focus on the "unlicensed driving" problem in the financial field, and exploring the mechanism of early detection and early disposal of illegal financial businesses of non-licensed institutions, and further accelerating the construction of the Internet Long-term financial supervision mechanism.
How lenders protect themselves
The latest data shows that as of March 31, 139 online lending institutions were in operation nationwide, a decrease of 86% from the beginning of 2019; the balance of loans fell by 75%, the number of lenders fell by 80%, and the number of borrowers fell by 62%. The number of institutions, the scale of loans and the number of participants have declined for 21 consecutive months. Since the start of the remediation work, a total of nearly 5,000 institutions have withdrawn.
Many lenders said: "How should we deal with the continuous withdrawal of online lending institutions? What if the thunder strikes?"
"Consumers should mainly do the work of collecting evidence and preserving evidence, while preventing falling into new scams; legally safeguarding rights through legal means, and actively cooperating with the public security department's investigation." Ouyang Rihui said.
Many industry experts have repeatedly said: "Under the current regulatory environment, online loan lenders must be cautious and wait for the policy to be clear."
"If the lender unfortunately stepped on the mine, for a platform with real assets and a certain collection progress, the platform can be given appropriate asset disposal time and actively cooperate with the work in the platform redemption process." Zhang Yexia also reminded the lender: "For the lender The platform involved in the investigation should collect and save the account details, transfer records, bank flow, screenshots of the loan record page, loan contract and other materials at the first time, and immediately report the case to register, clearly state the process of participating in the loan, and assist the court or the police to investigate ; You can join other lenders to establish rights groups, share information in real time, and understand the latest progress of the case. "
"The road to defending rights is long and arduous, and the lender must adjust his mentality and maintain rights rationally according to law." Zhang Yexia said.
"In the process of withdrawal of online loan institutions, lenders should remain rational. Online loan institution investments are high-risk investments, and lenders need to be mentally prepared to bear principal losses." Dong Ximiao also said: "Local governments and regulatory authorities must To regulate the withdrawal process of the online lending platform institutionally and establish the necessary filing system, it is necessary to clarify the withdrawal process and how to dispose of assets. Internet finance associations everywhere need to strengthen industry self-discipline and guide their orderly withdrawal. "In his view, in During the withdrawal of online loan institutions, it is necessary to form a multi-party linkage, form a joint effort, and carry out the platform withdrawal work in an orderly manner to properly protect the legitimate rights and interests of investors.
"From the previous practice, some local governments set up special accounts, and the funds after the platform has withdrawn from asset settlement and disposal are charged into special accounts, and then the special accounts are returned to investors according to a certain percentage. More secure. "Dong Ximiao said.
Economic Daily · China Economic Net reporter Qian Qingni