From Hello Bike to Hello Travel to Hello , with continuous brand upgrades and business expansion, Hello has become a comprehensive e-commerce platform spanning shared bicycles, online ride-hailing, two-wheeled electric vehicles, car rentals, gas discounts, battery swaps, hotels and B&Bs, as well as finance, e-commerce, and dating.
Kaijia Finance noticed that under the Alipay travel page, the cycling traffic is guided by Hello Bike and Alipay’s convenience life section. Hello’s status is at the same level as Alibaba Health , Cainiao, AutoNavi Taxi, and Fliggy Travel. It is precisely because of Alipay's long-term traffic that Hello's registered users have exceeded 550 million, becoming a unicorn with a valuation of over 40 billion yuan.
On December 22, the "Global Unicorn Top 500 Development Report (2022)" jointly released by Qingdao Municipal People's Government and the China Private Enterprise Research Center of Renmin University of China showed that ByteDance ranked first on the list with a valuation of 1.95 trillion yuan, and Hello ranked 130th on the list with a valuation of 40-45 billion yuan.
According to previous reports from the self-media "Consumer Finance World", Hello has already started to get involved in Internet finance as early as 2019, and launched the loan assistance platform "Zhenyouqian", with a credit limit of up to 200,000 and an annualized interest rate as low as 10.8%. Cooperating institutions include China Post Consumer Finance, Hangyin Consumer Finance, Vipshop Fubon, Xiaoying Card Loan, etc.
However, "Zhenyouqian" is not a loan assistance platform in the actual sense. In terms of business essence, it is more like a "credit diversion" business. The early cooperation model is mainly based on CPA (one user) and CPS (percentage of loan amount). Hello does not bear the overdue risk of later customers, and the diversion customers are also the accumulated registered users of the platform and do not buy from external platforms.
With Hello’s “upgrade” adjustments to Internet finance this time, this business is no longer just for diversion, but is truly dedicated to assisting loans. According to reports, the goal set by the senior management is to reach the scale of the industry's midstream platform within two years, that is, the annual matching transaction amount of will be around 40 billion.
In fact, while adjusting the goals of Hello loan business, the change in user experience is particularly obvious. The editor of Kaijia Finance previously registered with Hello and tried to apply for the "Zhen You Qian" quota, but it kept prompting "Approval is passed." However, the editor recently discovered that since August 20, Hello Zhen You Qian has repeatedly issued service notices to the editor: "The quota approval has been passed, and you have been selected as a privileged user to borrow money."
The editor tried to apply for cash withdrawal on Harozhen Money. The page shows that the maximum cash withdrawal can be 12,500 yuan. The lending institution is Hangyin Consumer Finance. It is divided into 12 installments, with each repayment of 1,182.62 yuan, and the total annualized interest rate is 23.8%.
In addition, Haluozhenyouqian continues to guide third-party lending platforms. The cooperative platforms include: Lefenqi (under Rongyitu Network), Tianmeidai (Chongqing Chongtian Small Loan), Character Loan (Different Media, Zhidetiancheng Information), Huaya Loan (Heilongjiang Shengtang Small Loan), Yousu Rong (Chongqing Kerong Small Loan), Yixin Che Laicai ( Yixin Group ).
It is not difficult to find that only part of the Haluozhen Youqian cooperative diversion platform is a licensed institution, and the rest of the platforms are suspected of being underground cash loan platforms.
Public information shows that Hangzhou Bank ( holds 42.95%) as the main sponsor, and is a licensed consumer financial institution established in conjunction with well-known companies such as Didi (holding 33.34%), Intime (holding 20.00%), and has a registered capital of 2.561 billion yuan.
The 2022 semi-annual report released by Bank of Hangzhou shows that as of the end of the reporting period, Hangzhou Bank’s unaudited total assets were 36.369 billion yuan, net assets were 4.718 billion yuan, operating income during the reporting period was 1.902 billion yuan, and net profit was 306 million yuan.
According to Southern Metropolis Daily statistics in May this year, among the 30 consumer finance companies that have opened, except for Home Credit Consumer Finance, the other 29 have disclosed some performance data for 2021. Statistical results show that in 2021, Hangyin Consumer Finance’s operating income was 2.78 billion yuan and net profit was 451 million yuan, ranking 7th and 6th respectively among 29 institutions.
Kaijia Finance noticed that Harozhen Youqian not only uses its own traffic to carry out loan assistance business, but also purchases traffic for "Zhen Youqian" through third-party platforms. For example, among the third-party platforms that is hungry and cooperates with for borrowing money, platforms such as Hello-Zhen Youqian, Yixin -Car Owner Loan, Borrow Money (Duolaidian Small Loans), and Lexiang Borrow-IOU (Shanghai Xuchang Technology) are listed.
According to a previous report by Beijing Business Daily, there are hidden worries in multiple settings of Harozhen Rich’s loan assistance model. For example, during the loan application process, the platform adopted a blanket authorization method from multiple lending institutions, which caused controversy; in addition, the platform repeatedly recommended risk reports on the grounds of increasing the loan amount, which was questioned by consumers as adding higher loan costs.
According to a test by a reporter from Beijing Business Daily, there is a big gap between the amount applied for and the loan amount of 200,000 yuan advertised by Hello, with an annual interest rate of 10.8%. For example, Baixin Bank html has an annual interest rate of 24% for a credit of 530,000 yuan, and XiaoXX Dai offers an annual interest rate of 35.99% for a credit of 8,000 yuan.
Authorization Agreement In addition to the personal credit inquiry submission authorization letter and financing guarantee service application form of financing guarantee company , it also has user registration agreements, loan applications and usage contracts of several consumer finance companies, as well as electronic signatures of some banks. In addition to authorization letters for use and facial information use authorization letters, it also includes more than 50 authorization letters for personal information inquiry. Among the further authorized institutions are banks, information technology companies, small loan companies and consumer finance companies, etc. The information obtained includes ID cards, contact numbers, communication information, social security information, property information, employment status, income and other personal privacy information.
There is also a monthly risk reporting fee of 29.9 yuan, which further pushes up the cost of loan interest rates in disguise.
