Internet deposit products are going to be taken offline? Is the Central Joint Investigation Team stationed in Ali Group?
Today, an article "Heavyweight: The Central Joint Investigation Team Enters Ali Group" was widely circulated. As of press time, the article has been deleted. Perhaps affected by the news, Alibaba Hong Kong stocks fell more than 2%. Subsequently, Alibaba’s official Weibo issued a statement stating that the foreign media’s report on the Central Joint Investigation Team’s entry into Alibaba was purely a rumor and the rumors would be held accountable.
In addition, the message "Alipay has been discontinued Internet deposit products, which is only visible to users who have purchased the product" has been swiped on the screen. Brokerage Chinese reporters have experienced Ant Alipay, Tencent Licaitong , JD Finance, Baidu Duxiaoman and other platform-based financial apps And to verify with the platform, most of the platform's Internet deposit products can still be deposited and redeemed normally.
You can see that the current Internet deposit products on the Ant Alipay platform have been removed, and Tencent Licaitong only sells WeBank deposit products; while JD Finance and Baidu Duxiaoman have Blue Ocean Bank, Yealink Bank, and Zhongguancun Bank. , Yealink Bank and many other Internet private banks deposit products are on sale.
In fact, there are not many Internet deposit products connected by Ant Alipay and Tencent Tenpay. On November 20 this year, a Chinese correspondent from a brokerage firm calculated that among the current 11 Internet platforms, JD Finance has the largest number of cooperative banks that have access to Internet deposit products, reaching 71; Duxiaoman Financial is followed by 46 cooperative banks.
In mid-November, Sun Tianqi, director of the Central Bank’s Financial Stability Bureau, pointed out in a public speech that Internet platform deposits have problems such as improper marketing behavior, increasing the difficulty of liquidity management for small and medium banks, regional banks’ deviation from market positioning, and distortion of regulatory assessment indicators. And proposed to set thresholds and upper limits for such businesses.
This has also been interpreted by some market participants as that the regulation of Internet deposit products may be coming. However, are there any regulatory requirements for the removal of interconnected deposit products on some platforms this time? A senior industry insider with the above-mentioned platforms told reporters that “some platforms have been removed and some have not been removed, and have not received it yet (supervision window guidance).”
The purchase and redemption of various Internet products have not been affected.
Internet Are deposit products offline on multiple platforms?
Brokerage Chinese reporters experienced multiple platform-based financial apps such as Ant Alipay, Tencent Licaitong, JD Finance, Baidu Duxiaoman, etc. and asked the platform for verification, and found that although the current Internet deposit products of Ant Alipay platform have been removed, Tencent Licaitong only We sell deposit products of WeBank, but Internet deposit products of most platforms can still be deposited and redeemed normally.
On the Tencent Licaitong-Bank Wealth Management page, the brokerage China reporter saw that only WeBank deposit products are currently on sale. At the end of November, on the same page, the reporter could see that there were products of Bank of Shanghai on display and sales. In addition, the WeChat Wallet Bank Deposit Portal also provided some users with ICBC and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank fixed deposit products.
On the wealth management product page of Alipay- Ant Wealth , you can see that the previous bank-Internet deposit product, has not been displayed, only users who have purchased and held the product before can see it. Also at the end of November, reporters on the Alipay-Ant Fortune-Bank Wealth Management page, you can see several wealth management products such as Internet Commercial Bank and Everbright Bank (products of wealth management subsidiaries). A person from the Ant Group confirmed to a brokerage China reporter that “currently all Internet deposit products on the Ant platform have been removed and are only visible to users who have purchased the product, and users who hold the product will not be affected.” Ant said that this is "Implement the regulatory requirements of the regulatory authorities for the Internet deposit industry, and use scientific and technological means to better support financial institutions and serve the real economy."
for Ant Alipay and Tencent LicaitongFor online deposits, some voices believe that "Internet deposit products have been removed from the shelves of various platforms." But this statement is not accurate.
Brokerage China reporter combed the current Tencent Licaitong, Alipay Ant Fortune, JD Finance, Lufax, Duxiaoman Finance, 360 Digital's You Fortune, Yipay, Tianxing Finance (formerly Xiaomi Finance ), Ctrip Finance, Didi Cooperation between 11 Internet platforms such as finance and digging treasures and banks. As of mid-November, the number of banks connected to the Internet platform bank deposit product area was as high as 95, of which local and regional banks such as urban and rural commercial banks and rural banks accounted for The highest rate is 70%. In addition, 2 large state-owned banks, 7 joint-stock banks and 2 foreign banks have also put deposit products on the Internet platform.
Among the 11 Internet platforms, JD Finance has the most access to cooperative banks, reaching 71; Duxiaoman Finance is second, with 46 cooperative banks, which is not much compared to Ant Fortune and Tencent Licaitong. However, some of these products do not have or are not displayed for some users. Take Duxiaoman Finance as an example. Of the 46 cooperative banks displayed in the bank deposit product area, 27 have no products on sale.
On December 18th, reporters logged on to JD Finance, Duxiaoman Finance, etc. and found that a variety of Internet deposit products currently on the two platforms are still on display. Take JD Finance as an example. The platform currently has 43 online deposit products in the display area, of which 8 products have been sold out. The product cooperative banks include private banks such as Zhongguancun Bank, Blue Ocean Bank , Huarui Bank, and Nanyue Bank, Regional small and medium banks such as Chouzhou Bank are the main ones.
picture from Jingdong Finance page
deposit product regulation approaching?
Normally, this kind of financial platform only displays the information display and purchase entrance of the sales deposit products. The displayed information includes the name of the bank, product period, initial deposit amount, deposit interest rate, interest calculation rules, etc.; while the products and services are provided by the bank and purchased Transaction operations such as redemption and redemption are all carried out through the electronic account opened in the bank to ensure the safety of funds. Moreover, according to the " Deposit Insurance Regulations ", since May 1, 2015, the maximum repayment limit for deposits made by the same depositor in the same bank is RMB 500,000.
In the past two years, as the yields of stable financial products represented by Internet treasure products have continued to decline, Internet deposit products have attracted many investors with their features such as guaranteed capital security, relatively high interest rates, and flexible access. Therefore, even though supervision has been launched several times before, such as the suspension of "current high-interest" products that rely on file interest for Internet products, Internet deposit products are still favored by wealth management users.
Many platforms such as JD Finance, Duxiaoman, Rong360, etc. have launched such products; and the types of cooperative banks have also expanded from private banks to rural commercial banks, city commercial banks, and joint-stock banks. This type of product has also become an important way for banks to absorb deposits and attract customers.
reporter noticed that a private bank accounted for 38.4% of deposits from external platforms. It is understood that the bank has cooperated with 13 platforms including JD Finance, Lufax, Meituan, and Xiaomi Finance. In April 2018, Shandong Blue Ocean Bank, as the first bank and its product, was also recommended on the homepage of JD Finance’s “Bank Deposits” column. Currently, the bank’s deposit balance has nearly doubled. The rapid growth of
Internet platform deposit business has aroused regulatory attention. On November 7 this year, Sun Tianqi sorted out the risks of deposits on Internet platforms in a public speech: First, the Internet financial platform provides information display and purchase interfaces for customers to purchase deposit products, which is essentially a marketing behavior. The product deliberately highlights the "zero risk" orientation of deposit insurance protection during marketing and promotion, and distorts the interest rate premium mechanism; second, local banks absorb deposits across the country through the Internet platform, deviating from their local market positioning of serving small, medium and micro enterprises; Third, the stability of Internet platform deposits is much lower than offline. Internet deposits are mainly for interest-rate sensitive depositors, which increases the difficulty of liquidity management for small and medium-sized banks. Therefore, the full amount of platform deposits included in personal deposits will cause the assessment indicators to be overestimated.
Sun Tianqi proposed that the business threshold and business scale upper limit for deposits on the Internet platform should be set based on regulatory ratings, operating conditions, capital and risk management capabilities, etc. "In particular, it is necessary to clarify which types of banks cannot do this type of business."
"The future direction should be standardization rather than stop." At that time, Zhou Yiqin, deputy dean of the Institute of Financial Supervision, said in an interview with a reporter from Brokers China that the Internet platform for storage is not only in line with the current era of onlineization after the epidemic. The big trend is convenient for customers to handle business. It is an effective channel for small and medium banks to replenish deposits. Judging from the current actual implementation, there are no substantial risks. It is recommended to grasp two core risks. One is the Internet platform's impact on deposit products. Propaganda must be standardized. Second, banks should not treat "snacks" as "staple food", and must closely manage the liquidity of deposits on the mutual fund platform.
On December 15, Sun Tianqi publicly stated again that in the past two years, many banks have launched deposit products on Internet financial platforms. Internet financial platforms carrying out such financial services are illegal financial activities of "driving without a license" and should be included in the scope of financial supervision. .
Sun Tianqi said that by disguising the interest rate of deposits by means of segmented interest payments, it disrupted the deposit interest rate market mechanism. Some banks increase the interest rate of deposit products on the Internet platform in disguise by shortening the interest payment cycle or issuing interest rate coupons and cash rewards, directly breaking the upper limit of the interest rate self-regulating pricing mechanism. In addition, high-risk banks absorb deposits through Internet platforms to quench their thirst by drinking pigeons, and liquidity risks are prominent. At the same time, the cross-regional nature of platform deposits increases risk spillover and increases the difficulty of disposal.
On the day before, on December 14, the six major banks issued an announcement that starting from January 1, 2021, early withdrawal of personal large-value deposit certificates and (fixed) deposit products that rely on file interest calculation, early withdrawal of interest calculation The method is adjusted from reliance on file interest calculation to interest calculation based on the listed interest rate of the current deposit on the withdrawal day. That is, if a customer wants to withdraw early when the time deposit is not due, the interest calculation method is still calculated based on the current demand, in order to standardize some previous banks The behavior of "accumulating interest on files" that attracts customers to store.
