Crisis often breaks out as educational institutions run, but the financial institutions behind the lending are not completely innocent.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Fueling Finance” (ID: rancaijing ), author Tang Yahua, Edit Wei Jia.
Educational institutions run every year, and this year is particularly large.
Online English learning platform “Langbo.com” is caught in arrears; the live-action online piano training organization is suspected of running on the piano; the online tutoring platform, one-on-one and one-on-one, have stopped operating, and still There are unpaid teacher salaries and student tuition fees; in October this year, the veteran English-language institution “Weibo English” was suspected of running, involving nearly 10,000 students, and the news of over 100 million yuan pushed the industry issue to a high point. .
The root cause of these institutions is the break of the capital chain, and education lending has increased this risk. When the user reports, the sales staff often persuades the instalment as a bait. Once the contract is signed, the student needs to repay the financial institution on time every month, and the financial institution will call the loan to the educational institution.
This is a tool to lower the threshold of user decision-making and increase the sales conversion rate of educational institutions. However, many training institutions are unable to block the temptation of cash flow caused by huge prepayments, and use it for other purposes, such as expanding new stores or trying In the new business, once the setback is frustrated, the capital chain will break and the students will not be able to repay the loan on time.
After the educational institutions exploded, the financial institutions behind the lending also surfaced. For example, Weibo English involved Jingdong White Bar and Baidu. Some students questioned that they had opened an education loan without knowing it. The financial institutions did not fulfill their audit obligations, and there was a collusion between the financial institutions and the educational institutions. The educational institutions would return to the financial institutions.
Industry sources said that in education loans, financial institutions have an implicit condition in addition to the instalment of principal and interest. Some financial institutions will talk to educational institutions about a fee similar to financial service fees. This is more common in the industry, because financial institutions provide instalment loans, which is equivalent to helping educational institutions to increase conversion rates. Whether or not the intermediate orders are divided depends on the agreement between financial institutions and educational institutions.
In fact, the General Office of the State Council has previously issued the “Opinions on Regulating the Development of Off-Campus Training Institutions”, which stipulates that off-campus training institutions may not “receive fees for a period of more than three months at a time”, which does not restrict financial institutions. Educational institutions can use the prepaid loan method to strike the ball.
It is foreseeable that future education loans will still exist.
01 I don’t know until the accidentHave already loaned money
Since October 2019, Weibo English, a 20-year-old educational institution, suddenly shut down a lot of stores. Students can’t attend classes, tuition fees cannot be refunded, but students who are carrying education loans still need to repay. The rumors of Weibo’s English capital chain break and running are very rampant.
Weibo English was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Shanghai. It is based on adult English courses and has a place in online English training institutions. According to official website information, Weibo English has covered 154 offline stores in 62 cities across the country.
On October 12th, Weibo English founder Gao Weiyu issued a statement saying that the company’s original financing plan was continuously postponed due to the failure of the company due to business failure.
It has been reported that Weibo English is still enrolling in large-scale enrollment in September, and many students have not paid tuition fees. Weibo English Shanghai is worth more than 35 million yuan, and Chengdu is over 20 million yuan. The amount involved in the campuses across the country has exceeded 100 million yuan.
The student from Shanghai told Feijing that she purchased the Weibo English course in March 2019. She originally planned to report for one year, but the salesperson said that only 2 years and above were reported. You can pay tuition monthly, otherwise you will need to pay in one lump sum.
In order to alleviate the financial pressure, she reported an adult English course with a price of 39,800 yuan for two years, and the monthly payment was about 1,600 yuan. “Until the official signing of the contract, Weibo English people have not said that I am doing a loan in installments. I don’t know what it is, they let me scan the code, click OK, bind the bank card, then the money will automatically Deducted from the bank card.” Fu said.
In June, she reported her daughter’s youth course of 24,980 yuan. It was also a monthly payment for the two-year period. When she reported her daughter, she knew that she was applying for a loan from Jingdong White Bar because of the platform. Restricted, Weber English replaced the loan provider of the second course with Baidu’s rich money.
Reviewing me, I can still go to class normally from April to June, and I will not be able to attend classes in July and August. “The other party said that there were many students, but later I heard that many teachers did not attend classes since July. The daughter only took several classes, and the National Day was on holiday. The other party said that it was a class transfer. As a result, the National Assembly received a notice of bankruptcy. .”
You can’t take classes, but the loan will still be paid monthly. The angry screaming contacted Jingdong and Baidu customer service, the other party said that the contract continued to take effect and must be repaid. She proposed to freeze the account first, and the other party did not agree.
“The course can’t be on, I won’t lose money every month. I didn’t pay back the bill in October. Now it shows that it has been overdue. The overdue interest rate of Jingdong White Bar is 0.9%/day, and the money is spent. 0.05% / day.” Fu said.
Another student, Zhang Bai, is a Weibo English course enrolled in May 2018 with a total price of 23,900 yuan and a two-year period.
“I was still a college student at the time, noAfter the instalment, the course consultant directly took my mobile phone and ID card to operate, less than 5 minutes. He also asked me to bind a bank card and send money to the card every month. I said that I was paying the tuition fee to the Weibo account. I saw that the monthly repayment interface had the word Weibo online, and I didn’t think too much. More, I realized that this is a so-called loan after something happened. Zhang Bai said.
At present, there are no more official responses except for EF English, VIPKID and other institutions that have received some Weibo English students.
02 Educational institutions can’t refuse the temptation of cash flow
In addition to Weibo English, according to incomplete statistics, there have been more than 20 educational institutions in crisis in recent years. This trend has emerged in 2018. In early October 2018, the school-based tyrants in Shanghai were one-on-one, and in October, Liyou, who had received GGV Jiyuan Capital Investment, stopped operating one-on-one.
The frequent occurrence of thunderstorms in the education industry has led to the education loan.
The so-called education loan is also called education staging. It is a kind of payment mode for some schools and institutions with training qualifications to pay tuition instalments. The service provider can be the school institution itself or a third-party financial institution.
In the Weibo English incident, several students contacted by Finance and Economy said that the course consultants were misleading when they sold the courses. They did not know the existence of education loans at the beginning of the course of purchase, thinking that they only paid in installments to Wei. Bo English. In fact, once a student signs a contract, the financial institution will lend the loan to the educational institution in a lump sum, and the student will need to repay the financial institution on time every month during the contract period, whether or not he or she attends the class.
In fact, education loans have existed for many years. The introduction of third-party financial institutions has alleviated the one-time payment pressure of the students. The educational institutions have obtained the students, and the financial institutions have also received interest income. This is a good thing for the three parties. However, once the educational institution’s capital chain is broken and the course cannot be provided, the students are reluctant to repay the loan, and the financial institution will face a large concentration of overdue, and the overdue repayment of the student will cause greater harm to personal credit, and the education loan will change overnight. Into the “nightmare” of countless people.
In this infinite loop, the educational institution has a frequent problem, mainly because the prepaid amount is used as a cash flow for expansion, and once the turnover is over, it will explode.
Investors with long-term education focus on the economy, the revenue recognition of training institutions is based on service delivery. If the service is not delivered, even if the financial institution gives money to the training institution in advance, essentiallyThis money is not a business. “But we observe that it is not easy to use this money. This is a big temptation. Many companies want to use cash flow to expand.”
He believes that the prepayment mechanism is a collective and fundamental cause of the thunder, but without prepayment, the capital efficiency of the enterprise in the development process will decline, and the prepayment is equivalent to the user’s capital leverage. So more companies still want to keep.
Behind this, it actually involves the business model of educational institutions.
The ONE Group co-founder He Yusha believes that some companies have begun to expand when the unit economy model has not run through, which is the cause of the thunder.
“In other Internet industries, the scale effect may bring huge growth, and it may burn a unicorn, but the education industry is not like this. The students are more and need more services. If the scale is expanded, a loss of one dollar may become a loss of 10 yuan. The core is to see how the company spends money and how to implement it. When the company is very small, the account is clear,” she said.
Yu Minhong also mentioned that the biggest risk in the education field is that this is a pre-receiving industry. The institution collects tuition fees for two or three years. The problems of enterprises are often “blocked” by capital in the early stage. With capital to help the education company go, there is no normal business model. When the advance payment is interrupted, the problem of capital cut-off will come out. “A thunderbolt is a big thunder.”
03 Internet giant behind education loans
Crisis often breaks out as educational institutions run, but the financial institutions behind the lending are not completely innocent.
Education staging is a kind of consumer finance. At present, there are services such as Jingdong Baitiao, Baidu Rich Flowers, Squirrel Bao Staging, Zhaolian Finance and other education and training staging platforms, as well as China Merchants Bank, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, Bank of Communications, etc. Credit card staging.
The data shows that there are currently more than 20 institutions holding consumer financial licenses in China, and the majority of licensed consumer finance companies with bank shareholder background. Due to the increasingly strict approval of consumer financial licenses, Internet giants often obtain licenses indirectly by means of shareholdings. For example, Baidu’s Xiaoman invested 450 million yuan to invest in Harbin Harbin Consumer Finance, Sina and Ali access stocks, silver, consumer finance, Ant Financial and Tencent. Indirectly holding China Post’s consumer finance through the shareholding of the Postal Savings Bank.
At the same time, microfinance licenses that can play an alternative role are basically available to several giant companies. Jingdong’s education installment providers are Chongqing Jingdong Tongying Microfinance Co., Ltd. and Beijing Jinghui Microfinance Co., Ltd.
Sources of Internet giants in the financial industry / Zero Finance
After the Weibo English thunderstorm incident, some users claimed that they had completed the loan without knowing it, questioning that the financial institutions did not fulfill their audit obligations, and even had an interest collusion with the educational institutions. Fu Yan told the Finance and Economics that there are rumors that they paid 8,500 yuan for 10,000 yuan to the educational institutions, and 1,500 yuan to the financial institutions.
The financial industry practitioner Zhang Yan said that the mode of consumer finance is relatively light, basically relying on online, after the basic information such as the user’s ID number and mobile phone number is submitted, the financial institutions themselves have some data sources and risk control models. To do the screening, most financial institutions believe that the risk of education staging is low, so the pass rate is also high.
Of course, it does not rule out the guidance of some sales people. Fu Yu first bought the adult English course with Jingdong White Bar. When she gave her daughter a second time, the sales reminded her that she needed to change into Baidu’s rich money to avoid the review.
As for the issue of “collusion of interests”, Zhang Yan said, “The profit model here is very simple. Financial institutions can first get the principal and interest of the installment. There is also an implied condition. Some financial institutions and educational institutions will Go talk about a fee similar to the financial service fee.”
He introduced that there are several billing modes in the educational institutions. CPA and CPM are common. CPA refers to how much money is paid directly according to the sales lead. Each clue is usually tens of dollars to more than 100. Yuan, CPM is based on a certain percentage of the turnover caused by sales leads. Financial institutions provide instalment loans, which is equivalent to helping educational institutions to increase conversion rates. Whether or not the intermediate orders are divided depends on the agreement between financial institutions and educational institutions.
In his view, this is not a violation of the law, but a business behavior, because the education institutions themselves need to pay for the customer or increase the conversion rate, the more profitable the industry, the more likely it is.
When an educational institution explodes, it will inevitably affect the borrower’s willingness to repay, knowing that the loan that is released cannot be recovered. Why are financial institutions so keen on education loans?
Zhang Yan explained that the education industry is generally hard to get customers, and it has spawned some business to help the education industry to guide the flow. Many students end up trying to pay for the courses, often give up because of the expensive courses, and turn from sales leads to real The conversion rate of the order is not high, so the scene of the education stage is spawned. For financial institutions, this is a very clear pattern, much better than cash loans, money directly to educational institutions, and the flow of funds is controllable, so the industry generally recognizes that education loans are a quality asset.
Even if there is a risk of thunder, many industry insiders still say that cash loans for unclear use in the financial industry will be regulated, but the future of education loans will depend onStaging products reduce the threshold for decision making. “Alpine analysis.
Alpine stands at the perspective of investors. In essence, most families do not have fundamental payment difficulties in their education expenditures. The consumption structure is adjusted again. Users will pursue cost-effectiveness and will not make concessions in education. At most, it is the problem of short-term cash flow. This is also the reason why countless entrepreneurs enter the bureau and investment institutions are heavily educated.
In his view, the prepayment mechanism itself has risks. The intervention of education loans has not changed its essence. It is only the low decision-making threshold that makes some consumers no longer rational, and the more they invest, the greater the late pits, which exacerbates this phenomenon.
In the educational institutions of the mine, Weibo English will not be the last one, and education loans will continue to exist in the short term.
* At the request of the respondents, Fuzhong, Zhangbai, Gaoshan and Zhangyan are all pseudonyms.
Daily topic
Do you choose an education loan? why?