Securities Times reporter Tian Mu
"Hello, is this Mr. X? My side is the XX Bank Credit Center. I have a credit line of 300,000 yuan for you. Do you need it?" I believe many people have received calls similar to bank loan sales. Most people hang up after saying "no need", but few doubt the identity of the other party.
In fact, the person on the other end of the phone was not a bank employee as he claimed, but a loan intermediary (also known as a loan assistance company) pretending to be a bank.
According to the bank credit manager, there are hundreds of loan assistance companies in Shenzhen alone.
Even conservative estimates put the number of calls from these companies in the millions every day.
If Shenzhen's permanent population is less than 18 million, it only takes three weeks for these loan intermediaries to call everyone again.
At a time when many industries are sluggish or even downsizing, the loan assistance industry is expanding against the trend.
In terms of recruitment software, not only Shenzhen, but also the first-tier, new-tier and other economically developed cities have many loan assistance companies with high salaries, recruiting a large number of loan telemarketers.
After years of brutal growth, bank loan assistance has formed a mature industrial chain: after loan assistance companies obtain a large amount of personal information from multiple channels, they screen out prospective customers by phone, and then use bank credit managers to help customers apply for loans.
On the surface, this is similar to that of a real estate agency, but recently, a Securities Times reporter discovered through interviews and undercover investigations at a number of loan assistance companies that there are many gray and even illegal behaviors. They not only use routines to earn large service fees for customers, but even assist customers. Packaging and falsifying customer information for bank approval.
Regulators have also taken notice of these wrongdoings.
On October 14, the Consumer Rights Protection Bureau of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission issued the "Risk Alert on Vigilance Against Illegal Acts of Loan Intermediaries", reminding consumers who have borrowing needs to choose regular institutions for loans and be wary of illegal intermediaries or illegal acts infringing their rights and interests. , to prevent such traps as falsely advertising information on loan processing in the name of a bank, defrauding high handling fees, and providing intermediary services that do not live up to the name.
"Annual income of 2 million"
"Follow the boss, earn 2 million a year", "Smile every day, get 31,000", "One year Porsche, two years Ferrari".
On a recruitment software, these tempting sentences appeared on a job posting for a company called Hangzhou Guangrong Rong Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Guang Rong"), attracting job seekers to apply.
When I clicked on it, I found that this so-called high-paying job with a monthly income of tens of thousands or even more than 100,000 was actually a sales position where people were hired for loans through telemarketing.
There are many such positions on this recruitment software.
Only one company, Guangrong Rong, is currently recruiting nearly 200 sales staff in five places in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Suzhou and Hangzhou. In addition, the reporter saw that hundreds of loan assistance companies in Shenzhen were recruiting a lot in less than an hour of browsing.
Other economically developed cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Chengdu, and Xi'an have a similar situation.
There is no accurate data on how many such loan assistance companies exist in Shenzhen and even the whole country.
In some parts of Shenzhen, on average, "there is one such company in every building," said a bank credit manager who works closely with the loan company.
Most loan assistance companies do not have high requirements for applicants, and the barriers to entry are very low.
This is related to the customer acquisition model of the loan assistance company: making a large number of calls through a sea of tactics, and then looking for a needle in a haystack to find customers who are interested in lending.
Therefore, when recruiting, there are no restrictions on education or experience, and only simple training is required. An inexperienced person can start calling customers after two or three days.
Because of this, Securities Times reporters submitted resumes to 18 loan assistance companies, 15 companies issued interview invitations on the same day, and 12 companies sent reporters an offer of employment within one day after the interview.
In the end, the reporter chose 2 of them to join the undercover investigation.
After joining, the company will conduct unified training for newcomers.
The training content is mainly divided into three parts: classification of bank loan products, analysis of customer "creditable points", telemarketing skills and negotiation skills.
Except for some loan assistance companies that provide products of non-bank licensed financial institutions (such as consumer finance companies), most loan assistance companies in Shenzhen connect with the existing loan products of various banks in the market.
These products are basically retail businesses in banks, targeting individuals and small, medium and micro enterprises.
The number of banks and products connected by different loan companies will vary. Some companies claim to have loan products from all banks in Shenzhen, while some newly established companies claim to have more than 30 cooperative banks.
From the perspective of their own business, the loan assistance company divides the banking products it connects into two categories: mortgage loans and credit loans.
Mortgage loans are mainly mortgage loans. Shenzhen's high housing prices make the loanable amount of mortgage loans range from several million yuan to tens of millions of yuan. After one transaction, you can get high service fees, which is the most supportive method. The main product of the loan company.
Credit loans match different types of products of banks according to the different qualifications of customers, such as personal consumption loans, corporate tax loans, salary loans, insurance policy loans, etc.
Based on different bank products, Company A summarizes the "creditable points" of customers.
The so-called "creditable points" refer to the different qualifications of customers, such as office workers or business owners, social security provident fund payment status, education level, age, whether they have a house, a car, and insurance policies.
By digging out the "creditable points" in customers, salesmen can match different banking products to different customers.
If there is a commercial house in Shenzhen, even if other conditions are not met, you can also apply for a mortgage loan.
The more "creditable points" a customer has and the better their qualifications, the more types of loan products they can apply for, the higher the amount, and the lower the interest.
For example, an ordinary small company employee who only has a high school degree, a monthly salary of 5,000 yuan, and has paid social security for less than a year can probably get a credit loan of 50,000 to 100,000 yuan from the bank.
For a programmer who graduated with a master's degree, works in a large factory, and has a provident fund payment base of 20,000 yuan, the loan company can help him apply for a credit loan of 1 million to 2 million yuan.
"Routine" customers
After newcomers understand the banking products and customer "credit points", they are just getting started.
The telemarketing training provided by loan assistance companies is actually to teach people how to fool customers and deceive customers.
The data obtained by most loan assistance companies is not accurate, so they need to use a sea of people tactics to make a large number of calls to screen out the intended customers.
A salesperson can make more than 100 calls a day, and more than 300 to 500 times, and more than 90% of the calls will be hung up just after the opening remarks.
An opening statement that can be trusted by the other party and willing to listen is the key to learning.
The opening remarks can be broken down into three key points: who am I, why am I calling you, and how this product will benefit you.
At present, the most commonly used identity of loan assistance companies is to use the names of various banks, such as "XX Bank Credit Department", "XX Bank Loan Assistance Department", "XX Bank Loan Assistance Center" and other names.
If the other party has a house, it will also say that it is "dealing with the mortgage interest rate cut service for you", and it is called a "financing platform" for the business owner.
In short, salespeople introduce themselves on the phone under the guise of various banks or more formal-sounding identities.
After that, it is necessary to attract customers with the attractive point of high and low interest.
For example, using words such as "there is an ICBC loan product with an interest rate of only 2% 6", "10,000 yuan a month with a minimum interest of 60 yuan", and "the maximum amount can be 2 million yuan" to make people in need of funds willing to continue talking.
But even if these words are mastered, the most frequently heard by sales is "don't need".
Liu Kang (pseudonym) joined M company for 5 days, made more than 1,000 calls, and only added to 2 people's WeChat (after the sales person identifies the intended customer on the phone, he will ask to add the customer's WeChat for follow-up communication).
It is difficult to get a door-to-door customer from tens of thousands of phone calls. How to make the customer accept the recommended loan plan instead of the ultra-low interest products that the customer heard on the phone, and accept high service fees. New "Routines".
First of all, most of the ultra-low interest products sold on the phone to attract customers are "made up" and do not exist.
Even if such products do exist, they require very high qualifications for borrowers.
What should I do if the customer specifies a low-interest product after they come to the door?
The answer is very simple, "In a word, your qualifications are not enough".
They will take the customer's ID card in the name of "passing the system", and come back a few minutes later to tell the customer that because their personal conditions do not meet the bank loan requirements, the low-interest product has not been approved.
Once the customer believes, the sale recommends eligible products based on their "creditable points".
After the loan plan is negotiated, whether the customer can sign the contract remains the key link, the service fee negotiation.
Loan companies help banks find customers, and banks don't give them commissions.
"The wool comes out of the sheep", and loan companies make money from their customers.
The Securities Times reporter learned that at present, most loan assistance companies in Shenzhen charge service fees ranging from 1% to 3% of the loan amount. Credit loans vary greatly depending on the qualifications of customers, ranging from 5% to 18%. not wait.
How to make customers accept a service fee of up to nearly 20%, loan assistance companies have long thought of "suppression points".
There are many pressure points.
For example, credit cards with overdue records, too many credit inquiries, too many previous loans, too old borrowers, not working in the current company for a long time, and even whether the spouse is aware of it, etc., will be used as pressure points to communicate with customers. negotiation.
By infinitely magnifying the "pressure points" on customers, it means that these problems are difficult to pass when the bank approves, and finally said that the company has a green channel for the bank, "we can handle what you can't handle yourself."
Many customers of company A where Xu Fei (pseudonym) works are credit loans, and he will focus on the situation of customers using online loans.
"Online loans and bank loans are opposites", "thieves trap people", once customers are found to have used online loans, they will be regarded as pressure points, indicating that bank risk control does not like people with online loan records.
After such a "routine", people who do not understand banking products, lack financial knowledge and need funds will willingly pay high service fees.
"To put it bluntly, our business is empty-handed and white-wolf." Soon after entering the business, Huang Shangsi (pseudonym) already knew very well that the loan-assistance company made money with poor information.
Data "grain"
In addition to a sales team that can skillfully fool customers, there are two other foundations that support the operation of a loan assistance company: data sources and bank channels.
Securities Times reporters learned from a number of loan assistance companies that there are four main types of phone numbers and sources of personal information that salespeople call every day: community owners, business owners, people with loan records, and people who submit loan applications through advertisements.
In Company M, everyone calls these personal data "grain and grass", and the manager's USB flash drive is the granary.
Every day, a batch of lists will be updated in the manager's USB flash drive. These lists will be distributed to the following sales in units of 100, and they will be called one by one to screen out the intended customers.
The list of community owners and the list of business owners are often called by sales.
For them, those who own a house or company in Shenzhen are all potential big customers, and a single transaction is enough for a few months.
One afternoon when the reporter joined M Company, a salesman sitting next to him got a list of all the owners of a certain community, including names, phone numbers, buildings, etc.
In his opening remarks, he said, "Hello, is this Mr. X, the owner of XX Garden? I'm specifically working with our community to provide mortgage interest rate reduction services. At present, seeing that the housing prices in our community are rising steadily, do you consider changing the appreciation space for a sum? Use the funds?"
The reporter made a rough calculation. If a 30-person telemarketing team makes 100 calls per day, the company will make 1.08 million calls a year, and 100 such companies make a total of 100 million calls a year. .
In Shenzhen alone, there are at least hundreds of loan assistance companies, and the actual number of calls is likely to double.
Where does all this personal data come from?
A real estate agent who has worked in Shenzhen for many years told reporters that only 500 to 1,000 yuan can buy the owner data of the entire community from the community property or the security captain. This is already a semi-open market behavior.
During the interview, the reporter learned that a leading loan assistance company in Shenzhen has a lot of information on the owners of the community, because "the boss used to be a real estate agent".
Information about business owners is also easy to find, even without spending money.
Huang Shangsi often uses his colleague who is doing shell company buying and selling business next to him to check member accounts, select a list of companies by region, industry, scale, etc., and then export the data and upload it to his outbound software.
There are also many channels through which personal information can be obtained.
For example, various online loan assistance platforms, insurance companies, car sales companies, and even bank loan record lists can be obtained through credit managers or insiders.
A credit manager of a large bank who works closely with the loan company told reporters that many data such as the list of community owners are not exclusive. "Now there are 3 sales of 1 potential customer in Shenzhen who are following up on the phone."
In the fierce competition, loan assistance companies keep recruiting people in order to be able to make their own sales calls before their peers find their intended customers.
On the last day of Company A's undercover operation, a Securities Times reporter asked the manager who was distributing "grain and grass" to his subordinates, "Now the protection of personal data is becoming more and more strict, and many companies have been arrested in the past two years. Are you not afraid of being investigated?"
"I can't check it out, can you check it out?" The manager replied while sending a data package of 200 people to a salesperson.
Gray product "deformation"
A person in charge of a loan assistance company who has been in the business for nearly 10 years told reporters during an interview that the rise of loan assistance companies in Shenzhen began in 2014.
Since its development, the business changes of loan assistance companies are closely tied to the Shenzhen property market.
During this period, Shenzhen’s housing prices began to soar, from 2014 to 2020, making it one of the most expensive cities in the country.
During this period, most of the customers of loan assistance companies applied for loans to buy houses.
They hold the expectation that house prices will keep rising, and they don't care about loan interest or service fees.
The most typical example is the Shenzhen real estate speculation platform "Shenfangli", which was exposed last year, raising funds for real estate speculation on a large scale.
As a loan intermediary, loan assistance companies help real estate speculators obtain loan funds from bank credit loans and business loans, which seriously disrupts the market order.
After the outbreak of the epidemic, in order to support the affected real economy and small, medium and micro enterprises, the state requires banks to increase the corresponding amount of corporate business loans and inclusive finance loans.
On June 1, 2020, the central bank, together with the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, the National Development and Reform Commission and other eight ministries and commissions, issued the "Guiding Opinions on Further Strengthening Financial Services for Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises", requiring the banking industry to "increase in volume and reduce prices" for loans to small, medium and micro enterprises, and put forward a proposal. A series of clear indicators.
For example, the five state-owned banks are required to increase the growth rate of inclusive small and micro loans by more than 40%, and the weight of commercial banks' inclusive finance in the performance evaluation of branches and branches is increased to more than 10%.
Many banks have launched low-interest loan products under the policy requirements.
Among the banking products offered by M Company, the annualized interest rate of a product of XX Bank is only 2.66%, which is much lower than the mortgage interest rate of at least 4%.
This has been exploited by real estate speculators and loan intermediaries. They obtained a large amount of operating loan funds from banks through various means, and turned them into the real estate market as a down payment, boosting the Shenzhen real estate market to its highest point during the epidemic.
In early 2021, the relevant regulatory authorities also noticed such violations.
From the central bank, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission to the local regulatory authorities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, they have all begun to strictly investigate the illegal flow of business loans into the housing market.
Since then, many cities, including Shenzhen, have introduced a number of severe measures to control housing prices, and there is no longer room for the bullish property market, which has also greatly reduced the related business of loan assistance companies.
Since the beginning of this year, the epidemic has exacerbated the pressure on economic development, and both companies and individuals are generally short of money.
A credit manager of a joint-stock bank who cooperates closely with the loan company told reporters that the use of customer funds for loans through intermediaries is no longer to buy a house, but more for turnover or arbitrage. client".
This can also be seen from the change in the rhetoric used by sales calls.
For example, when calling the owners of the community, the sales will no longer emphasize the room for housing price increases, but instead claim that it can help customers convert mortgages into low-interest business loans and reduce customers’ monthly loan repayment pressure.
But what remains unchanged is that loan assistance companies will still use various packaging and assist in forging fake materials, violating the bank's requirements for the actual use of loan funds, and helping customers to obtain funds.
Among them, operating loans are the main target of loan assistance companies due to the advantages of high quota and low interest.
"Collusive" Risk
The business loan meeting will review the company's establishment time, tax payment, corporate account flow, sales contract, etc.
Zhang Fan (pseudonym), the manager of company M, told reporters during the training that for some customers who have companies but do not meet relevant requirements, they will help forge materials such as running water and purchase and sales contracts.
For customers who do not have a company in their name, it is also very simple to buy a qualified shell company for the customer and change the customer to the legal representative of the company.
Company M has a dedicated team to do the buying and selling business of shell companies.
During the undercover period of the company, the reporter saw that the employees of this team called every day, and the question changed from "doing a loan" to "Boss, do you want to sell the company?"
The reporter learned that the fee for an ordinary shell company is very low, two or three thousand yuan can be done, and then it can be sold to those who need a business loan at a price of seven or eight thousand, and an additional profit can be made.
Even people who cannot work in private companies can do it.
Find the legal representative of a shell company, and the two parties sign an agreement that the person is the actual controller of the company and can apply to the bank for business loan products.
Although the logo of the bank or the sign showing the partnership can be seen on the walls or display cabinets of many loan companies, in fact, very few banks will establish a public-to-public partnership with the loan company.
An insider of a large state-owned bank told reporters that his branch expressly prohibits cooperation with loan intermediaries.
Managers of several joint-stock banks and city commercial banks also told reporters that even if banks, especially sub-branches that undertake front-line business, acquiesce in loan intermediaries as the source of customers, they will not publicly support and establish official cooperative relations.
The person who really establishes the cooperative relationship with the loan assistance company is the individual credit manager of the bank who does the loan business.
As mentioned above, the regulatory authorities have set up assessment indicators for the quota and growth rate of inclusive small and micro loans of banks. When it comes to front-line credit managers, they will naturally carry more and more heavy indicators.
Unlike large clients, the extremely fragmented SME loan business is difficult to achieve with a single credit manager.
The emergence of loan assistance companies has become a free and efficient customer acquisition channel for credit managers.
The above-mentioned stockholders also told reporters that the relevant performance appraisal pressure is one of the reasons for promoting the cooperation between credit managers and loan intermediaries.
The Securities Times reporter contacted the credit managers of the two banks on the grounds that they wanted to establish a new loan assistance company.
They are already cooperating with a number of loan assistance companies, and reporters are welcome to recommend clients to them after the company is established.
One of the credit managers of a large state-owned bank also took the initiative to say that after the company was established, it could provide free door-to-door training on banking product knowledge.
"You don't need to maintain any relationship. Once you build a reputation, we will take the initiative to find you."
This close interest ties bank credit managers and loan companies together.
Even in the process of packaging and assisting in the process of falsifying customer materials, not only do the loan facilitators not need to hide from the credit manager, but the two parties may even "collude".
Zhang Fan once told reporters that he and several bank credit managers with good relationships often eat, drink and have fun together. If some customers have flaws in their qualifications, they can help them with a little bit of management.
In a loan assistance company, the interviewer told reporters that some customers need to provide proof of the actual office space to apply for business loans.
Such phenomena are not isolated cases.
There are even bank credit managers who do not go through the loan assistance company and go directly to help customers forge materials.
An office worker in Shenzhen told reporters that he had taken out a large consumer loan from a bank. The surface purpose was for decoration, but it was actually used to buy a house.
In order to help him avoid the bank's monitoring of the inflow of loan funds into the housing market, the credit manager who helped him handle the loan took the initiative to help him find someone to complete a false purchase contract for high-end furniture, home appliances, etc. The loan funds are transferred and withdrawn to cut off the bank's tracking of the whereabouts of the funds.
In the training of company A, when they heard that the service fee charged by credit loan customers was as high as 18%, the reporter asked the customers who could accept such a high fee that their qualifications should not be very good. If the money was not paid later, the bank would ask for help Is the loan company responsible?
Xu Fei said, "Our customers have nothing to do with repayment, and the risk is borne by the bank."
Nowadays, these loan assistance companies are expanding wildly in Shenzhen and even in many parts of the country, involving a large number of banks, which not only increases the risk of bad debts of banks, but also diverts a large amount of funds that should have been used to support small, medium and micro enterprises with real needs. Going against the original intention of the national policy, it is urgent to clear the source.