Small loan companies have dropped by 2,500 in 6 years, and Chongqing still occupies the "commanding heights"

　　The number of small loan companies has dropped sharply by 2,500 in 6 years, and Chongqing still occupies the "commanding heights", and many factors promote the reshaping of the industry

　　The pattern of small loan companies is changing quietly.

The regional situation of micro-loan companies recently announced by the central bank shows that in 2021, the national micro-loan balance will increase year-on-year for the first time since 2018, but the number of micro-loan companies and employees have decreased significantly, and regional differentiation is more obvious, especially in Chongqing. The proportion of loan balance has exceeded 1/4, reaching 25.57%.

　　A number of industry insiders told the first financial reporter that there are many reasons for the decrease in the number of small loan companies, including the sinking of banking business, the squeeze of the Internet model, and the impact of stricter supervision, but the most fundamental reason is that small loans The legal status and development orientation of loan companies lack a unified definition, and there is a great pressure to survive.

Regarding the future development trend of the industry, the industry generally believes that with the implementation of the new regulations on small loans and local financial supervision and management regulations, the number and scale of small loan companies will be further reduced in the face of the constraints of not being able to operate across regions, but they will return to their origins. In the future, it will better serve the real economy.

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　　The latest data released by the central bank shows that by the end of 2021, there were 6,453 small loan companies nationwide, with a loan balance of 941.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 55 billion yuan.

A reporter from China Business News found that this is the first time that the balance of small loans has rebounded since the decline in 2018. Previously, the data once fell from 979.949 billion yuan at the end of 2017 to 888.754 billion yuan at the end of 2020.

According to analysis by industry insiders, the rebound in loan balances may be related to the large gap in operating funds for small and micro enterprises after the epidemic.

　　Although the loan amount has rebounded, the number of small loan companies and employees across the country continues to decrease.

In 2015, the number of domestic micro-loan institutions reached 8,910, and the number of employees exceeded 110,000. Since then, it has continued to decline. In the past six years, there have been 2,457 less micro-loan companies. In 2021, the number of companies in other provinces except Hainan and Tibet will be The number of employees has decreased to varying degrees; the number of employees has dropped sharply by more than 50,000 during this period, of which 17,000 have been reduced from 2020 to 2021 after the epidemic alone, and now there are only more than 60,000 people, a sharp drop of nearly half.

Some practitioners have revealed that in recent years, the double blow of the macro economy and the epidemic has caused great changes in the living environment of small loan companies, and customers’ doubts about the qualifications of small loan companies have further increased the difficulty of business development, and the number of “lost contact” companies has increased; On the one hand, the online exhibition industry has gradually become the mainstream model.

　　From the pilot start in 2005 to the clear definition in the guidance in 2008, small loan companies have been approved and supervised by local financial supervision departments for more than ten years. They do not absorb public deposits and operate small loan business. It is an important supplement to micro and "agriculture, rural areas and farmers", but since 2017, due to the spread of Internet loan risks, supervision has begun to rectify the Internet finance industry, including the small loan industry.

Zeng Gang, director of the Shanghai Finance and Development Laboratory, told reporters that because of the differences in positioning and access thresholds from traditional financial institutions, small loan companies have experienced a stage of rapid development and expansion. The competition for the business sinking of the terminal and some consumer finance companies, the squeeze of the Internet small loan model is more obvious, and the small loan companies do not have advantages in customer acquisition costs, loan interest rates and capital sources, and can only serve local small loan companies. Inevitably run into trouble.

　　As the number of institutions dwindles, regional changes are quietly taking place.

According to the data of the central bank, as of the end of last year, Chongqing, as the province (municipality directly under the Central Government) with the largest balance of small loan loans, had a loan balance of 240.723 billion yuan, an increase of 63.515 billion yuan compared with 2020, and its proportion in the country has also increased from less than 20% to 1/20%. 4 or more.

Guangdong ranked second with a small loan balance of 89.546 billion yuan, and its proportion also increased from 8.6% to 9.5%.

　　"Chongqing has its historical particularity. Because the local government supported small loan companies more strongly at that time and the policy requirements were relatively loose, there were more local registrations, and most of them were Internet small loans." said Dong Ximiao, chief researcher of China Merchants Union Finance. Because Internet small loans can be developed nationwide, it will have a greater impact on the overall scale.

From the perspective of company distribution, several large-scale Internet microloans currently include Ant Small and Micro Loans, Ant Shangcheng Microloans under Ant Group, Chongqing Duxiaoman Finance under Baidu, as well as JD.com, Meituan, Didi, Xiaomi , Suning have at least one small loan company registered in Chongqing, Tencent and ByteDance have registered Tenpay Small Loan Company and Zhongrong Small Loan respectively in Shenzhen, and Lufax has small loan companies in Chongqing and Guangdong. business loan company.

Multiple factors are "flanking"

　　Stricter supervision is an unavoidable survival test for small loan companies, especially the rapidly expanding Internet small loan companies, which face strict restrictions on entry barriers.

In November 2020, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and the central bank jointly issued the "Interim Measures for the Administration of Online Small Loan Business (Draft for Comment)", which proposed new requirements for the registered capital of online small loan companies: not less than RMB 1 billion and a one-off The registered capital of small loan companies operating online small loan business across provincial administrative regions should not be less than 5 billion yuan.

　　Up to now, at least 8 Internet companies, including Ant, Tencent, Meituan, JD.com, Baidu, Suning, 360 Digits, and ByteDance, have increased the capital of their small loan institutions to more than 5 billion yuan.

Just last year, the financial management department interviewed 13 Internet platforms that carry out financial business, including Ant and Tencent. The rectification requirements include promoting the compliance of small loan and consumer finance companies.

It also mentioned that all financial businesses must be licensed to operate, and in the process of rectifying "Huabei" and "Beibei", Ant Group will transfer all small loan business to Ant Consumer Finance Company. It may gradually change, and the industry pattern is facing a reshaping.

　　However, Dong Ximiao believes that the transfer of small loan business to consumer finance companies is not a universal requirement at present. Although the reduction in the number of institutions has the impact of stricter supervision, small loan companies still have their own room for survival and development. He did not agree with the suggestion of turning it into a village bank".

Dong Ximiao believes that the most fundamental problem is to clarify the legal status and development orientation of small loan companies, so that such institutions can return to their origins to serve the local area.

　　Following the 2020 Supreme People's Court's Reply on the Scope of Application of the Judicial Interpretation on New Private Lending, it was clarified that 7 types of local financial organizations, including small loan companies, belong to financial institutions approved by the financial supervision department. The Administrative Regulations (Draft for Comments) clarified the definition of "7+4" local financial organizations/institutions for the first time, and at the same time strengthened the concept of central-local cooperation supervision. Dong Ximiao believes that this is of great importance for small loan companies and other law-compliant business development. effect.

　　However, most of the above-mentioned documents belong to the stage of soliciting opinions, and the impact of the official implementation remains to be seen.

"Under the current policies and the downward economic trend, there are indeed some difficulties in the development of small loan companies, and the scale may be further reduced." Dong Ximiao believes that small loan companies have promoted the improvement of my country's multi-level credit market, but some small loan companies Problems such as illegal deposit absorption by companies, fund-raising fraud, and violent collection are more serious in some places, and it is inevitable to strengthen supervision.

Zeng Gang also said that after regulating the regulatory arbitrage behaviors such as usury, the entire small loan industry can better support the development of small and micro enterprises and the local economy in the future.