This may be just the eve of the industry storm.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Zinc scale” (ID: znkedu), author: zinc scale.
Founded in 7 years, China’s leading credit card billing management tool, known as the Internet finance “unicorn” 51 credit card, suddenly became the focus of the whole network.
After media reports, on October 21, 2019, 51 credit card Hangzhou headquarters was investigated by the police, many people and information were taken away, and its CEO Sun Haitao had been taken away to assist in the investigation.
Zinc scale contacted 51 credit card headquarters at the first time, and did not receive a response until the time of publication.
However, according to the official announcement of 51 credit cards, “the financial situation remains normal and sound.
Any further developments related to the incident investigation will be provided to provide shareholders and potential investors with up-to-date information in due course.
From this official point of view, it is not denied by the police investigation.
Moreover, its headquarters has been unable to enter, in addition, some media also said that its Shanghai branch has “people go to the building.”
As for the reasons for the investigation, some people in the industry have revealed that 51 credit cards have suffered “dark moments”, which are related to the improper access of the crawler program to user information and collection of business outsourcing.
51 credit card
The future is difficult to determine
.
However, this may be just the eve of the industry storm. Under the background of many well-known big data companies being investigated and P2P platforms exploding, the market and policy environment of the Internet finance industry where 51 credit cards are located has become more difficult and difficult. Moment.
Suspense data, collection outsourcing
Zinc scale found that 51 credit card investigations were exposed in less than an hour, and its stock price plummeted 34.69%. The company subsequently issued a suspension announcement:
51 credit card suspension is traded on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Public information shows that 51 credit card was founded in 2012, initially a pure credit card management tool, which was transformed into credit card and wealth management in 2015. The Internet financial platform for lending and other businesses opened the road to profitability one year later and successfully landed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2018. The semi-annual report of 2019 showed that its operating income was 1.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.8%, net profit of 309 million yuan, an increase of 12.9%, registered users of 83.4 million, an increase of 21%, and the number of managed credit cards reached 139 million, an increase of 16.90. %.
About the reason why 51 credit cards were investigated, one statement was caused by a bank report
.
A letter from a bank letter to 51 credit card company is circulating on the Internet.
“Through our technical monitoring, we found that your company crawled our user information through the crawler program.
“It should not be crawling credit card bills.
“On October 21, a senior Internet finance executive told the zinc scale:
“It is possible to crawl sensitive information such as the assets status and family status of the cooperative bank users, which can be described as ‘daring.’
The person further informed:
“If this kind of behavior is true, it will violate the bottom line of financial security, and it will not be acceptable to the regulatory authorities. The future prospects are worrisome.
As of now, this news has not been further confirmed.
The zinc scale is inquired on the official website of 51 credit cards. There are 20 public cooperative banks, including large and medium-sized banks such as state-owned banks and joint-stock banks, as well as small and medium-sized banks such as city commercial banks and private banks.
It is worth mentioning that on the recruitment website, I found a crawler job recruitment information for 51 credit card operation company Enniu Network Technology Co., Ltd.:
Working in Hangzhou, salary 15K-29K, improve the nut platform ability and experience.
Search for “51 credit card + nut” as keyword, jump out of Beijing Nut Credit Management Co., Ltd. (Beijing Nut Credit)
According to the company’s check, the representative of Beijing Nuts is the 51 credit card CEO Sun Haitao, who holds 100% of the company.
Beijing Nut Credit Company is positioned as:
“Focus on providing real-time online user data collection, evaluation and assistance to financial institutions to establish an effective credit evaluation system and risk control data foundation.
In fact, before the 51 credit card, in September this year, Hangzhou Konjac Data Technology Co., Ltd., Hangzhou Chuangxin Data Technology Co., Ltd., Tianyi Credit Information and other well-known big data risk control companies were investigated.
“The whole industry is treacherous and striving.”
“Multiple data industry practitioners have said that they have begun to stop the crawler business.
Another way is to collect business outsourcing.
Allegedly, a vice president of 51 credit card replied to the media:
“51 credit card collection and outsourcing problems, the company’s P2P business is normal.
However, according to the zinc scale survey, there have been more than 4,000 complaints involving 51 credit cards on platforms such as black cats and poly complaints, and most of the complaints are related to violent collections.
A number of complainants told the Zinc scale that if they borrowed 51 people, if they were overdue, they would be harassed by the callers without interruption, and the words were full of threats, intimidation and insults.
An investor who asked not to be named is even more angry and scared:
“After a one-day overdue, 51 credit card management family members have contacted my relatives and friends directly without contacting me.
The mutual company does not want to be happy in the capital market
51 credit card accidents have a harbinger.
In March of this year, the “Give You Flower” operated by Beijing Dingli Chuangshi Technology Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of 51 Credit Card, was exposed by the 314 CCTV evening party.
At the beginning of July, the 51-person product loan was also criticized by the official website of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology for collecting personal information without the user’s consent.
In addition to the capital market, 51 credit cards were also left out for a long time.
Before listing, 51 credit cards had a total of seven rounds of financing, including Xue Manzi, Xiaomi, Jingdong, Shunwei Capital, Jiashi Investment, Yintai Group and Xinhu Zhongbao.
On July 13, 2018, 51 credit cards landed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The opening price was 8.76 Hong Kong dollars. The opening price reached a record high of 9.35 Hong Kong dollars one minute after the opening. The closing price was HK$ 9.10 and the market value was 10.8 billion Hong Kong dollars.
After that, 51 credit cards have fallen all the way, and have been sluggish.
As of October 18, 2019, the stock price fell to 2.71 Hong Kong dollars, down 71.02% from the historical high point. On the next trading day, October 21, 2019, with the spread of the investigation, the stock price opened the plunge mode to 1.77 yuan, if not suspended in the session, the decline will expand.
The reason for this is that it has always had a lot to do with P2P blasting. In the past year or so, liquidation, business suspension, and running have become the labels of Internet finance, and the capital market is afraid to avoid it.
In this context, the 20 or 30 Internet finance companies listed in the United States and Hong Kong, China, have been extremely unsatisfactory in the capital market.
At present, Internet finance companies listed in the US, such as Pleasant Loan, Music, Fest, Loan, Credit, and Credit, all fell below the issue price, of which the preferred loan was the first listed. Internet finance company.
The worst thing to do is to be rich and trustworthy. The opening price of the listing is $6, and today it is only $0.33, a drop of 94.50%. As the second Internet finance company listed in the US stock market, Xinfu has been the New York Stock Exchange. Issued “ultimatum” and faced the risk of delisting.
The Internet financial companies such as the building block group, Remittance World, China PayPal, and China New Holdings, which are listed in Hong Kong, China, are also completely annihilated.
The 51 credit card with 51 products, 51 people’s goods and other products, naturally can not escape the market value has shrunk dramatically.
Closed loop mode is revisited
Foreseeable, with
51 credit card “stepping on the thunder”, its advocating closed-loop mode will also be re-examined by the outside world.
Before 2015, the main business of 51 credit cards was credit card and credit card management. Li Wei (a pseudonym), a credit card marketer of a commercial bank, said on the zinc scale that this business is white for the bank to divert and earn a bit of hard money in the middle.
Obviously, this model cannot cover the cost, so the 51 credit card company’s annual net profit is negative from 2012 to 2015.
The business opportunities in this industry chain are coming soon.
Guosen Securities believes that:
“In order to meet the demand for credit card compensation, a complete industrial chain has been formed in the market, and a professional platform is available for credit card holders.
One mode is based on wisdomCan replace the APP, use the credit card balance to repeatedly brush out, deposit to meet the repayment conditions mode to attract users to join.
The essence is that the credit card is cashed out, and it plays the same role as the mobile phone POS card reader, but the former is further fully automated.
This model was used by criminals for pyramid schemes. According to Hunan Satellite TV, Qi Zhi was also investigated by Changsha police in April this year.
Another gameplay is represented by 51 credit cards, which provide credit matching business directly through financial management
——51 credit card with its 51-person loan as a platform, attracting a large number of customers, for credit card promotion, loan promotion, credit card compensation, wealth management and other charging services to earn service fees, thus forming a closed loop.
The so-called credit matching service fee, that is, the fee charged to the borrower after successful loan acquisition, including the pre-service fee and the post-service fee, etc., after the issuance of the Notice on Regulating the Reorganization of the “Cash Loan” Business, the credit matching service fee It was changed from pre-deduction to instalment payment.
51 credit card prospectus revealed:
“Credit matching service fee income accounted for 71.63%.
“This is its biggest source of income.
In addition, for overdue issues, 51 credit cards introduced third-party financing guarantee companies, and Beijing home World Bank Finance Guarantee Co., Ltd. has launched a peace of mind plan, that is, after receiving the loan principal, the borrower must pay the peace of mind plan maintenance fee and management fee in a certain proportion according to the loan principal amount, and use it to pay the borrower for overdue potential payment. Loss, high upfront “overdue” service fees.
At present, this model, known as the “Yin and Yang Contract” in the industry, has become the second largest revenue of 51 credit cards.
This model has gradually become an industry consensus, and Maimang’s credit housekeeper, credit housekeeper, and Ka Niu have adopted this model.
Industry sources say that this closed-loop model has a weak point:
Under the current strong regulatory environment, if the business is not in compliance, it will become a hidden danger. Among them, the higher interest rate is the most prominent, and the one that is not well handled is the “disaster”.
According to the Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Laws in the Trial of Private Lending Cases, the annual interest rate of private lending is protected by law within 24%.
The practice of lenders charging low interest rates and collecting high service fees from the platform is a common practice on P2P platforms.
Some lawyers said that the current “hidden rules” gameplay in the industry is that the annualized interest rates publicly marked are relatively low to attract users to borrow, but the actual operation process of various messy charges has pushed up the real interest rate, and some even exceeded 36%.
The problem is, with the 51 credit card accident, how can the future of the credit card management APP for many “not doing business” go?
No one can judge at present.
On October 21st, a senior person of a credit card management APP said that the zinc scale indicates that it is difficult to see the future of the industry. On the one hand, after years of “staking the way”, the credit card market has become saturated.
In the future, the competition of interbank credit card business will be more reflected in the advantages and disadvantages of products, services and marketing activities. The original repayment of credit card APP and other functions have already been replaced by Alipay, WeChat, etc. The original functions have not adapted to the development of the industry.
On the other hand,
The prospects for realizing the credit card user data are also far away. Even if the law is law-abiding, in fact, the top giants Amazon, Ali, and Tencent are still slowly exploring the value of data, not to mention the mutual competitiveness of the core companies.
“With the regulatory issues, the downturn is a long-term confrontation between mutual gold practitioners.
The above-mentioned people said that what they can do now is to find a living space only in an environment of strict supervision.