Young people who "woke up" are breaking free from the quagmire of online loans
Our reporters Huang Haibo, Zheng Minghong, Liu Mengni
"If you can afford it, you won't drop out." Because he couldn't repay the online loan debt of more than 100,000 yuan, Li Ke had no choice but to withdraw from a college in Sichuan.
Because his girlfriend is out of town, Li Ke often buys gifts for each other in order to maintain the relationship.
However, whether he is relying on selling some daily necessities on campus or working part-time outside of school, he always feels that he has a lot of money.
When he saw that his dormitory students were using online loans, he also had a mentality of "borrowing a little money for a transition" and began to borrow money from the online loan platform.
From 360 financial loans, to installment loans, and then to Lilidai, there are more and more platforms for borrowing money, and the things you buy are getting more and more expensive.
High-end lipsticks, new mobile phones, laptops... More than half a year later, Li Ke's online loan debt reached 120,000 yuan.
Due to general family conditions, I can only choose to withdraw from school in the end.
On the online platform Douban, there are some discussion groups named "Debt Repayment Alliance", "Debt Repayment Alliance", and "Post-90s Debt Exchange". There are as few as a few hundred and as many as tens of thousands of people who have encountered or are experiencing online loan problems. People.
Xinhua Daily Telegraph reporters combed through these discussions and found that "advanced consumption", "accumulate less to make more", "finance loans with loans" and "scorched amounts" are high-frequency terms among them.
"You can get tens of thousands without leaving your house, and it's easy to get stuck"
In the summer of 2017, Lin Yuchen, who was still attending school in a college in Guizhou, used Huabei to purchase a mobile phone priced at 1399 yuan in installments.
Looking back now, Kobayashi felt that he had opened a "Pandora's Box".
"I didn't think too much at the beginning. I felt that when the living expenses came next month, I would be able to pay back the money." She said.
Lin Yuchen really feels the convenience brought by online loans: you no longer need to save money and spend a long time before you can afford the jacket you like, and you don't have to wait until next month's living expenses to get together with friends...
Gradually, Xiaolin became dependent on online loans, and successively opened JD Baitiao and Vipshop.
Expenses are getting bigger, and the average monthly repayment is gradually increasing.
At most, she owed a total of nearly 20,000 yuan on various platforms.
In order to repay the loan, I pay the monthly living expenses as soon as I get it, and I have to find a friend to borrow money or go to a part-time job to earn money. "In order to do a part-time job, I sometimes have to skip class and my studies are also affected."
Wang Yueran's first contact with online loans was also in college.
Because of the lack of living expenses, I was too embarrassed to ask for it from my family, so I borrowed a few hundred yuan online, but I quickly paid it back.
After graduating, Wang Yueran traded stocks while working. After losing money, he wanted to get back his money, so he contacted online lending again.
It has only been more than a year since graduating from university, and Wang Yueran owes 80,000 yuan on various platforms.
"At this point, I have a big problem myself." Wang Yueran told reporters.
Like many young people who are deeply involved in online loans, Wang Yueran borrowed very little at first and was very cautious, but in the end the result was a loan.
"Lending from this platform to return to that platform is actually an endless loop, which leads to more and more borrowing." Wang Yueran said, "One ID card and one bank card for receiving payments can give you tens of thousands without leaving your home. Under such circumstances, young people are really easy to get trapped."
During the two sessions this year, Li Jun, a deputy to the National People's Congress, suggested increasing the supervision of online loans.
He believes that although online loans can to a certain extent alleviate the imbalance of consumption power caused by uneven income at different ages, there are low application thresholds, simple access conditions, irregular interest calculation methods, and illegal reminders. Wait for very obvious problems.
"Boiled Frog in Warm Water" Overdrafts the Future of Young People
Industry insiders believe that the installment payment provided by online lending platforms will weaken the crisis awareness of young people and overdraft the future.
After the installment of a product, you may only need to pay back 100 yuan per month, which is not very stressful.
With this kind of psychology, young people may buy a lot of things in installments. These installments add up to a large sum of money and will last for a long time.
Mo Kaiwei, a researcher at the China Institute of Local Finance, once wrote that the change in consumption concepts, the low threshold for lending on online lending platforms, and the social atmosphere created by capital to encourage young people to dare to consume ahead of time and over-indebted are all the more important factors for my country’s “indebted people”. The main reason for more and more.
Many interviewees reported that online lending platforms only display daily or monthly interest rates during promotion, which creates an illusion of a very cost-effective to users.
In fact, this low daily interest rate corresponds to a high annual interest rate.
Take the “borrowing 1,000 yuan with a daily interest of 0.5 yuan” promoted by some online lending platforms as an example, the corresponding annual interest rate is 18%.
The reporter's inquiry found that the 1-year loan market quote rate (LPR) released on February 20 was 3.85%, or 0.1 yuan per 1,000 yuan.
According to Zhang Anhui, an associate professor of the School of Economics at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, in behavioral economics, this approach is called the framing effect, that is, using different discourses to express the same problem to guide people to make different decision-making judgments.
"For the same thing, with different expressions, readers' feelings and reactions are different." Zhang Anhui said that calculating interest on a daily basis will make users feel less pressured.
In addition, because online loan platforms often only issue bills at the end of the month and the beginning of the month, young people often have no idea of their own debts before they receive the bill.
Many young people interviewed said that having to pay off debts every month makes them feel very tired.
"I figured it out myself. If I keep using it, I can't even afford a toilet. And as we get older and our parents get older, we must have a certain ability to resist risks." Lin Yuchen said.
Wang Yueran still does not know how much interest each loan is.
Because they are all instalments, they are too lazy to calculate the specific amount of interest. "I think many people, like me, will be numb when borrowing money to a certain extent and dare not face reality."
"Feeling easy" after bidding farewell to online lending platforms
According to the “Report on China’s Young People’s Indebtedness” released by Nielsen Market Research, among the more than 3,000 surveyed people aged 18 to 29, the penetration rate of credit products was 86.6%, and the proportion of consumer products using Internet installments reached 61. %.
There is public concern that when factors such as youth, impulsivity, poor self-control, and lack of resistance to temptation erupt together, young people may fall into debt dilemma.
However, the reporter observed that in recent years, many young people have also chosen to say goodbye to online loans.
Several parties told reporters that the "sense of crisis" and "stop loss in time" were the main reasons they made such a decision.
On Zhihu, "What kind of experience is it to turn off ant flowers?" This question has been viewed more than 2.39 million times, and more than 500 netizens have shared their experiences and feelings.
The reporter combed through these posts and found that "sigh of relief" and "debt-free and light" have become common feelings.
Lu Ming, who studied in a college in Shaanxi, bought an electronic watch and an accessory priced at 850 yuan in installments with Huabei.
Adding up the two installments, Lu Ming had to repay nearly 500 yuan a month, which affected her daily life and made her vigilant.
At the end of last year, after receiving the scholarship, she paid off the remaining Huabei installments in one go.
"Many people may be spoiled by online lending platforms such as Huabei. They are not aware of the crisis, and over time they may be burdened with debts that are difficult to repay." Lu Ming said, feeling very relaxed after the payment, and she will now persuade her friends to have fewer friends. Use online loans.
In Zhang An'an's view, unnecessary pre-consumption will damage the future consumption ability for reasonable demand, and irrational pre-consumption may also lead to waste of resources and encourage the unhealthy trend of blind comparison.
Chen Haiyi, a representative of the National People's Congress, conducted a survey at the Guangzhou Internet Court and found that in more than 110,000 cases involving Internet disputes, more than 60% of the defendants were young people under the age of 35, and the trend continued to increase.
In this regard, she suggested in this year’s two sessions to guide and standardize the orderly and proper operation of online platforms, improve the credit investigation system, and prevent the risk of long-term borrowing; for cases involving online disputes under the age of 35 and debts of less than 10,000 yuan , Implement pre-reconciliation enforcement, and use disciplinary measures with caution.
On March 17, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and five ministries and commissions issued a document requesting that microfinance companies shall not issue Internet consumer loans to college students, and further strengthen the risk management of Internet consumer loans for college students from licensed financial institutions such as consumer finance companies and commercial banks, without regulatory authorities All approved institutions shall not provide credit services to college students.
Analysts believe that because many online lending platforms currently mainly use the licenses of small loan companies to lend, this time the publication has almost stopped the consumer loan business for college students, but for young people with a larger base, it is necessary Use more power to get out of the online lending quagmire that may fall into it.
(At the request of the interviewee, some interviewees in the article are pseudonyms)