The banking department has made new tricks in the consumption of gold, the volume and price of loans are under pressure, and the flow war is intensified

　　Author: Qi Ning

　　The semi-annual report of listed companies has come to an end, and the operating performance of banking consumer finance companies has also surfaced.

　　Under the influence of factors such as economic downturn and repeated epidemics, consumer finance companies, as the "nerve endings" to meet consumer capital needs, face many challenges such as falling interest rates, conservative consumption, stricter supervision, and customer acquisition bottlenecks.

　　The first financial reporter combed through the 16 banks that have disclosed comparable data in the first half of the year and found that most of the consumer gold companies achieved a positive year-on-year increase in net profit, but the industry still showed the pattern of "one major" of China Merchants Union Finance. City commercial banks' consumption of gold has become a "dark horse" for profitability, and the consumption of gold companies under the two major banks is facing a more severe test.

　　In a complex environment, in addition to profitability, consumer finance companies that have not fully expanded their financing channels are also facing pressure to replenish capital. The recently renamed Nanyin, France, Pakistan, and consumer finance have received a large capital increase from shareholders, which has attracted much attention.

The differentiation intensifies under the background of incremental but not profit-enhancing

　　From the perspective of profitability, in the first half of this year, the growth of net profit of bank-based consumer gold companies still showed a trend of polarization. Among them, China Merchants Union Finance continued to lead with an operating income of 8.416 billion yuan and a net profit of 1.937 billion yuan, with the last seven companies. In stark contrast to consumer gold companies with net profit below 100 million yuan or even negative growth.

　　Specifically, except for China Merchants Union Finance, in the first half of this year, only Xingyin Consumer Gold (1.15 billion yuan) had a net profit of more than 1 billion yuan, followed by Immediate Consumer Gold (584 million yuan). The three profit growth rates were respectively were 25.62%, 12.31%, and 32.43%.

In addition, there are 6 consumer gold companies including Hangyin Consumer Gold and Changyin 58 Consumer Gold with profits of more than 100 million yuan.

　　Comparing the profit growth rates of various companies, it can be seen that, except for Sunshine Gold, a subsidiary of China Everbright Bank, which has not been established for a long time (August 2020), the profit fluctuated greatly. The profit growth rate of joint-stock consumer gold companies represented by China Merchants Bank and Industrial Bank's consumer gold companies is relatively stable.

　　In contrast, the performance growth of the city commercial banks Xiaojin in the first half of this year was more prominent, while the large state-owned banks encountered growth bottlenecks in a special environment.

　　Among the city commercial bank consumer gold companies, Hangyin consumer gold (306 million yuan), Changyin 58 consumer gold (234 million yuan), and Shangcheng consumer gold (50 million yuan) have all doubled their net profit. In the first half of the year, the growth rate of net profit of Yinxiaojin (0.37 billion yuan) was more than 50%.

　　However, as one of the few large banks that are consumer gold companies, both China Post Consumer Gold and Bank of China Consumer Gold saw a sharp decline in net profit in the first half of this year. China Post Consumer Gold fell to 191 million yuan from 791 million yuan in the same period last year. The consumption of gold has dropped from 532 million yuan to 136 million yuan, a decline of more than 70%.

　　Comparing the growth rate of loan scale, it can be seen that in the first half of the year, most consumer finance companies faced the situation of "increment without increasing profits".

For example, the loan balance of Xingyin Consumer Gold in the first half of the year was 62.812 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26.57%, which was significantly higher than the growth rate of revenue and net profit; Bank of China Consumer Gold had a large net profit when the loan balance increased by 1.63%. slip.

　　This is not unrelated to the impact of the epidemic in the first half of the year, the regulation to guide interest rates to fall, and to further benefit consumers.

Postal Savings Bank disclosed in its semi-annual report that since the beginning of this year, China Post Consumer Finance has responded to the policy to reduce loan interest rates and reduce customer loan costs. 19,000 customers affected by the epidemic have been provided with financial relief policies such as special interest and fee reductions, bill translation, credit support plans and mediation services, of which more than 49 million yuan in interest and fee reductions.

Gold consumption and customer acquisition also fight traffic

　　It is not difficult to see from the financial data of some consumer gold companies that in addition to the downward interest rate squeezing profit margins, the business scale itself is also facing greater pressure.

According to the operating data of Zhongyuan Consumer Gold, the company added 1.9181 million new customers in the first half of the year, a significant decrease from 2.4139 million in the same period last year.

　　On the one hand, multiple factors such as the repeated epidemics and the downturn in the property market have made consumers more and more conservative, and their willingness to save and investment and consumption tend to go up and down. getting bigger.

In this context, consumer gold companies will inevitably start a "traffic war".

　　Taking China Post Consumer Gold as an example, while lowering interest rates to benefit consumers, the semi-annual report also disclosed that it released 49 short videos on themes such as “rational consumption” and “consumer rights protection”, and received more than 120,000 likes. , actively creating a social environment for rational borrowing and rational consumption; another example is Bank of China Consumer Gold, the loan balance grew weakly in the first half of the year, but the online balance accounted for 41.66%, an increase of 6.61 percentage points over the end of the previous year.

　　Postal Savings Bank clearly mentioned in the semi-annual report that in the first half of the year, China Post Consumer Finance continued to adjust its business structure and strengthen business transformation to cope with the changing external environment and market competition, including reaching out through multiple online scenarios and focusing on mining high-quality traffic. And resources, explore the high-value user model delivery method, and achieve a 23% reduction in customer acquisition costs; in addition, China Post Consumer Finance also increased the mining of existing users and increased user activity.

　　In the context of the gradual shrinking of incremental space, relying on the resources of the parent bank to acquire customers is also an important way.

For example, in the first half of the year, China Post Consumer Finance deeply explored the production capacity of mobile banking “Post You Loan” through smart telemarketing, enterprise micro-private domain operations, etc. At the same time, it also vigorously promoted postal agency financial referral marketing. New activities, etc. to increase customer acquisition.

In addition, the company has also strengthened the joint operation with the postal express logistics sector and the postal group e-commerce sector.

　　From the perspective of user groups, new citizens have become an important direction for the business expansion of the consumer gold company.

Especially after the Central Bank and the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission jointly issued the "Notice on Strengthening Financial Services for New Citizens" in March this year, competition in this field has become more intense.

For example, Haier Consumer Finance (non-bank) disclosed that since its opening on December 26, 2014, as of June 30, 2022, it has served 8.87 million new citizens and issued 26.22 million loans to new citizens.

The pressure of capital replenishment of tail institutions is not small

　　A strong parent bank can not only help consumer finance companies acquire customers in terms of resources, but also an important source of capital replenishment for consumer finance companies.

　　On the evening of September 2, Bank of Nanjing announced that the company and its main shareholder, BNP Paribas, would jointly increase the capital of BNP Paribas, of which Bank of Nanjing contributed 2.914 billion yuan and BNP Paribas invested 1.486 billion yuan. After the capital increase was completed, the two contributed capital. The proportion will be increased from 56% and 3% to 65% and 30.08% respectively, and the registered capital of Nanyin, France, Pakistan and Consumer Gold will increase from 600 million yuan to 5 billion yuan.

　　At present, among the bank-based consumer gold companies, the top three in registered capital are China Merchants Union Consumer Finance (10 billion yuan), Ant Consumer Finance (8 billion yuan), and Immediate Consumer Finance (4 billion yuan). , South Bank's gold consumption will exceed the immediate consumption of gold.

　　As a basis for business expansion and a barrier to resist risks, how to ensure sufficient capital is also a major problem faced by consumer finance companies, especially for tail institutions, the financing situation is even more severe.

　　At present, consumer finance companies use inter-bank borrowing as their main source of funds, but more and more consumer finance companies have made attempts in the fields of financial bonds, ABS, and syndicated loans. In March this year, Zhongyuan Consumer Finance received a wholesale bank of 2 billion yuan. Financial bonds, as of now, there have been 8 consumer gold companies that have obtained financial bond issuance qualifications.

　　In contrast, the financing costs of ABS, financial bonds, and syndicated loans are significantly higher than shareholder funds and inter-bank lending, and have certain thresholds for financing entities.

　　However, the current financing channels of consumer gold companies have been broadened.

Just in July this year, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission approved the issuance of tier-2 capital bonds by China Post Consumer Finance, with an issue amount of no more than 1.8 billion yuan. China Post Consumer Finance has thus become the first consumer finance industry to obtain secondary capital bonds from wholesale banks. Gold companies are seen as an important ice-breaking signal.

　　Previously, in November 2020, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission issued the "Notice on Promoting Consumer Finance Companies and Auto Finance Companies to Enhance Sustainable Development Capability and Improve the Quality and Efficiency of Financial Services", which clearly proposed to appropriately reduce regulatory requirements for provision, broaden market-based financing means and increase In the form of capital supplementation, consumer finance companies can also issue tier 2 capital bonds with the same treatment as banks to enhance their ability to resist risks. However, since then, only the Changyin 58 Consumer Gold has publicly tendered tier 2 capital bond lead underwriters to purchase projects, but it has not yet been clarified. progress.

　　After the introduction of the new Internet loan regulations, the capital pressure of online small loan companies has increased, and the market has more expectations for licensed consumer gold companies with more leveraged advantages, but in the fierce competition, the "stronger is still strong".

Xiao Feifei, chief analyst of the banking industry of CITIC Securities, predicts that in the medium term, companies with multiple financing channels and lower financing costs will have stronger ability to expand their balance sheets. Therefore, the issuers and issuance volume of consumer gold bonds and ABS will continue to increase. The pace of the listing of the Ministry of Finance is expected to accelerate.