Before the Spring Festival, I again contacted several cash lenders, including Gao Zi and Lemon, six months after they last interviewed them.

In the past six months, the cash loan industry has come to an abrupt end in December from the peak of July and August. On December 1, the mutual-benefit rectification office issued the Circular on Regulating and Standardizing Cash Loans Business, and the regulatory boots officially landed.

A top-ranking cash lending platform manager told Tencent "Prism". After the above notice, most domestic cash loan business has been suspended and some platforms have started to shift their business to Southeast Asia. "In addition to monitoring the various restrictions on the platform, now continue to do so is equivalent to disk, because the bad debt is too high." The source said the subjective and objective factors superimposed, so that the industry has been unsustainable in the country.

Gao Tsai, who works at Foxconn, told Prism that after the last interview, he again staged three mobile phones, including an iPone6, in less than a week, "because it's not used to it." Until recently For the new vivoX20 plusA, spent 3,500 yuan, is his one-month salary.

His credit line in a platform, also from the original 8,000 yuan raised to 15,000 yuan, and now his available quota only 2,000 yuan. When he thought about repaying more than 5,000 yuan in March, he had a headache. "I plan to clear these accounts in April and do a credit card."

From October onwards, Lemon (WeChat name) no longer play cash loans, because he found himself unable to borrow out after the payment, "was a routine, almost killed."

He lent a total of more than a dozen times in cash loans, some of the annual interest rate as high as 180%. He attributed these experiences to his "naive past." Now he also did a credit card, the amount of 8,000 yuan, for him, already enough.

Loan of cash, the "annual outlet" is so down, but the consumer finance story continues. If the fast-type platform is hot because it meets the entertainment needs of the vast majority of blue-collar workers in China, then the financial needs of this class are also increasingly valued, and with unlimited potential. Resend "young people who borrowed 1,000 yuan at a high interest rate" and hope to provide some thinking points for everyone.

For 1,000 yuan high interest borrowing young people

Prior to the decision to set up a petty cash loan platform in 2015, Fang Cheng (pseudonym) encouraged two young employees to apply for Foxconn's pipeline as a worker to investigate the financial needs of a blue-collar workers group in China. Although the two undercover staff members were expelled after a week, they did not find anything.

Fang Cheng was told that the group that loves the urgent need for small cash is not limited to blue-collar workers. The market is bigger and bigger than he thought.

Two years later, this fall, the three-year-old fun store was worth as much as $ 63.6 billion on the day it was listed on the NYSE across the ocean. It should be noted that this small cash lending platform was founded only three years ago In 2016, large-scale investment in cash loans will start. The market capitalization of 63.6 billion yuan surpassed the combined market capitalization of 18 listed cities (or peasants) in China.

In China, tens of millions of post-90s blue-collar workers spend a great deal of their time on entertainment and spending on mobile phones every day to make their life outside of work more interesting. They need short-term borrowings and use future wage income to repay principal and interest. Two or three years ago, entrepreneurs like Squad, who were keenly aware of the smell, began planning for financial services for the market.

In the past month, we interviewed a large number of cash loan users in Shenzhen, Dongguan and Beijing. After 90, they all worked in manufacturing, hairdressing and restaurant services. Some of these users have low incomes of only three or four thousand dollars. Some also earn as much as seven or eight thousand yuan. In addition, there are millions of households that have family-run businesses, but these people are equally keen on In order to borrow a few thousand dollars to pay interest through the Internet.

They are willing to share their stories, but are required to be anonymous, they are only willing to publish their own screen name.

Small cash loans, which are based on Payday Loan (payday loans) in the United States, even conservative investors believe that this industry will become another major "outlet" in China's Internet finance following P2P. . It is even evaluated by many P2P practitioners as representing the "most advanced productivity" in the field of internet finance. Because of its strong profitability, access to capital markets, much sought after in the capital.

Download a mobile app, enter the ID number, bank card number and other simple information, you can get two or three thousand dollars in the amount of borrowing, and up to half a month to several months of the loan cycle. Such an uncomplicated model allows young people who have long been excluded from the mainstream financial system to be so close to money for the first time. The frequent annualization of more than 100% of the high interest rates, but also allow a small cash loan available on the scene that has been questioned and criticized.

Practitioners at a number of cash-credit start-up companies told Tencent "Prism" that the size of small-sum loan loans is currently around 30 million. Only a few open-platform registered users surpass 20 million. This means that, even ignoring the elderly and children who are not online, among the remaining 1 billion people, the penetration of small cash loans has also reached 3%.

With the influx of more capital to promote, the size of cash loans to users is expanding at a geometric speed. According to Trustdata's statistics, as of September 2017, there were 12.4 million new subscribers in the cash lending app, up from 3.44 million in the same period last year.

Consumption tomorrow

In early September, Shenzhen in the early autumn was still hot and dull. At 4:00 pm, it was the working hours. Only one high-end mobile phone store in Foxconn Longhua Park in Shenzhen provided only two high-profile customers.

A few minutes ago, the High Aberrations purchased a 2999 yuan vivo X20 phone, a kind of "Fortune loan" installment product for him one-time payment of all the money to buy mobile phones, and sales The staff of the financial products is explaining the steps of repaying mobile phones for Gao Zi. He told him that the interest on installment is "seven million" (Editor's note: the annualized interest is about 25%), and wait until three months later Early repayment, or to be charged in advance repayment fees.

At Foxconn's campus, ads for "Fortune Loan" were printed on banners between buildings and on posters in the billboards. Publicity materials everywhere show that Fortune loan is Foxconn's first consumer financial products, positioned as "Foxconn's credit wallet."

This is the first time Aberdeen touches the "Fortune loan," he won a quota of 8,000 yuan, in addition to cell phone staging of nearly 3,000 yuan, the remaining 5,000 yuan can be free to spend, cash. Prior to that, he had been using the products of one of the country's oldest consumer finance companies, starting with the first handset in 2008, for a period of nine years.

Turn left at this cell phone shop and turn left 100 meters, high Aberdeen straight to the corner of the open-air smoking area, surrounded by a few banyan trees (squatting) full of rest young people, their movements neatly uniform: Smoke, staring at the phone screen, watching video, or playing games. King of glory and happy consumer music is the most popular two games here.

High Aberdeen do not play games, he likes to watch videos. Every day at 8 o'clock after get off work, to see at least two hours, then rest days, you can watch a whole day. "The only bad thing about this handset just staged was that the memory was too small, only 64G." He wondered, over time, to expand the memory to 256G so that it could fit more dramas and movies.

High Tsai is actually not high, wearing a shallow fan vertical stripes short-sleeved shirt, one of the buttons out. He took a double happiness cigarette point from his blue trousers pocket and began telling me about his experience.

He is 25 years old this year, has been in and out of Foxconn eight years, the basic salary from the moment just came in 1800 yuan, rose to 2550 yuan now, count overtime pay, he is currently able to earn 3800 yuan a month - 4000 yuan.

Just five minutes ago, he spent more than two-thirds of his monthly salary to buy a cell phone.

He thinks it's worth "I will try my best to use a little better," because the phone is used for a long time things. A week ago, he spent 900 yuan on Taobao bought a no-name mobile phone, "Now it has become a brick, can not use, it should be lost." This made him more determined, "Buy to buy good."

Prior to this, he also had three cell phones by installment, an iPad. One of the iPads listed in 2014 priced at 6888 yuan - the equivalent of two months salary, "I came directly out of one." He spent five months before and after the repayment of the loan.

Unfortunately, this iPad took less than a year, was stolen in a rental house.

Every day factories, canteens, dormitories monotonous life at three o'clock, so that high school usually not much overhead. He calculated a bit, after deducting 110 yuan for the company accommodation fee, 400 yuan filling card, one month spent about 800 dollars, which means that he can save 2,000 yuan per month -2500 yuan.

But there are also special occasions, such as last weekend, he and his colleagues went to Hong Kong to play together. Eat and drink shopping plus tickets, two days spent more than 4000 dollars. "Empty hands in the past, come back empty, nothing to buy, no money." But he felt that since the want to play, why care about the money, "Big deal back the past two months cut point."

Due to the multiple installments of credit, high-end in this consumer finance platform credit gradually increased, almost every installment, there are customer service call to ask him or not to raise the line. By 2015 has been raised to 50,000 yuan. At that time, his rural home was just building a house and needed money. As a result, he borrowed all at once, with a loan period of 5 years and regular monthly repayments.

He did not count how much the interest on the cash loan was and the loan contract he signed had long been thrown away by him. He only knows that he still has to pay 1237.5 yuan a month now. According to this figure, the annualized interest on this loan is about 17%.

"If it is well-funded, I am not going to install and borrow." High-Tsai said he also knew that these loans are expensive, that cheap is not cheap.

In the high Aberdeen view, working in Foxconn actually quite leisurely, "that is a bit boring." His main job is to look at the machine. If the machine is faulty, handle it. If there is a fault, he will sit in a daze. From 8 am to 8 pm, day after day.

The oil-rich mall outside the plant area pedestrian street, almost able to meet their entire life needs. On this 50-meter-long street, there are two hairdressers, four make-up and skin care shops, a mobile phone shop and a small loan company. The rest is a restaurant specializing in specialty snacks.

The mobile phone shop clerk told Tencent "Prism", the store's hottest phone that sold more than 50 units last month, of which more than half of the customers chose to installments, optical store cooperation staging platform there are five , "Just choose which one you have, interest is about the same," she said.

17:00, the crowd began to surge from the huge white plant across the tide, looking at coming and going pedestrians, high Tsai emotion, flash over a decade passed, the ten years he saved 150,000 yuan, plus 50,000 borrowed, have all been used to build a new home in his home. The next step is to consider the marriage, and now his bride's bridewealth there should be at least 100,000.

"I'm carrying too many things right now." He stamped the cigarette butts down on the floor.

Love and hate, can not get rid of

Fang Cheng told Tencent "prism", relative to Foxconn closed the park-type workers, the park outside of all kinds of jobs, such as company sales staff, real estate agents, hairdressers, decoration workers, waiters and other restaurants, their consumer scenarios more abundant, Lending demand is also more robust.

It was 4km away from the place where work was to be carried out. It was midnight. There was still a brightly lit inside of a hairdressing salon. A dozen young people dressed in uniforms at the store stood in a row, and the former director was giving them a regular meeting this week. Peak is one of them, yellow hair fluffy and publicity, in his view, that is a symbol of identity.

On the eve of the 11th, the business of the hair salon was exceptionally busy. The rush to work at 10 o'clock in the morning apparently has been somewhat unsustainable. It yawns again and again, which further strengthens his determination to resign.

"Now hairdresser industry wages less than four thousand, but also not stable, prices rose, the commission did not rise, and now in Shenzhen each year tens of thousands of hairdressers switch."

Peak is an active small cash loan user, borrowing money frequently on both platforms. One of the quotas is 1,500 yuan; the other is also 1,000 yuan in the future, borrowed money for daily consumption, nothing less than eating, smoking, entertainment.

"Suggest not to engage in net loans, it is a pit, will be deeper and deeper." He warned. Both of these annualized interest rates are more than 100% of the loan, so that he love and hate, but can not get rid of.

He did not save a penny. "The barber is a must-study for a while, learning more than 10,000 yuan at a time, how rich is it?" He asked.

He decided to go back to work on Foxconn - yes, he also spent three years at Foxconn, a monthly salary of more than 3,000 yuan. Later, due to being remembered at Foxconn, within three years can not increase wages, so he had to divert to become a barber's experience.

A week later, he told me that the interview Foxconn was eliminated. He had thought the bad record had been removed for so long.

A week later, he told me that he had left Shenzhen and returned to the capital city where his hometown is located.

Born in Tsinghua University and the State University of Michigan set up the Net Ranking project team Qing Yan think tank, the past two years also began to 90 after the youth work groups did a series of research to study their group characteristics and consumer behavior. They found that, as Xiaofeng did, this group is highly mobile, "usually the interviews are not over and the respondents have resigned," said Zhang Hongyun, research director at Qingzhi Think Tank.

These research teams also found that the income levels of post-90 youth work groups are relatively low but their consumption levels are relatively high.

Specifically, nearly 40% (38.7%) of the post-90 after-work workers earn less than 3,000 yuan per month but nearly 60% (59.1%) spend between 1,000 yuan and 3,000 yuan per month. In addition, Savings generally low, sixty percent (60.0%) savings below 1,000 yuan.

"To spend is wealth"

Like Fang Cheng, many petty cash lending platforms, especially several head companies, conduct regular user surveys and interviews to allow more accurate portrayal of users.

After communicating with a number of small cash lending platforms, Tencent Prism has generally obtained the portraits of this group: mainly men (over 80%), aged 22-35, and those living in first- and second-tier cities , College and below qualifications, monthly salary of 3000-8000 yuan.

In the wisdom of the CEO Coking Group may seem, petty cash loan user groups, with occupation, income does not matter much, because whether you make eight thousand monthly or monthly earn three thousand, may become moonlight clan. Really the most relevant, or age, is a group of young people under the age of 35. Chi Rong Group owns a small amount of cash loans with money, from the public data, its registered users of more than 15 million.

Jiao can be mentioned that young people have two greatest characteristics: First, his future income will be higher than it is now, so dare to consume; the second is the future life is still very long, will be more emphasis on their own credit value, it is relatively healthy Crowd.

The above-mentioned High Tsai told me that more than 90% of his colleagues around him are all "90", and the youngest one is 98 years old, the youngest is 87 years old and the age is 30 years old this year.

The aforementioned Qing Yan think tank's report pointed out that "after 90" grew up in the entertainment era, and developed a unique entertainment habits and ways, emphasis on entertainment consumption is one of the significant consumption characteristics of the workforce after 90. In the "post-90s" migrant workers groups, expenditures for leisure and entertainment (including travel, internet, movies, etc.) accounted for 59% and 57.4% respectively for the three income levels of 1,000-3,000 yuan, 3,000-5,000,8000 yuan, , 63.6%.

This means that this young group is willing to come up with more than half of the monthly income spent on entertainment. At the same time, income groups below 3,000 yuan, the proportion of entertainment consumption is no lower than the high-income groups. In their eyes, entertainment has become a necessary expense.

A Jian was born in 1992 in the proportion of entertainment spending, apparently higher than the average.

His family opened in the southern coastal town of frozen meat factory, a few million a year income. He works at home and is responsible for delivering daily to all upscale hotels in the city, with a monthly salary of 6,000 yuan. Even so, often not enough flowers, "just eat and drink gone."

In the game world, he is a veteran player, played the game "no fewer than ten have eight," and each will be charging money. "Even the simplest phone fishing has cost money, hundreds of hundreds a day filling, often open a plug-in to make it in that fight (fish)."

He figured out that these years ago, the money spent on the game should not be less than 50,000 yuan plus "play three girlfriends." In the face of girlfriends and games who are more important century puzzle, every time the game wins. He also reflected that his self-control ability is too poor.

"The game seems to fill your emptiness, or loneliness, will bring you happiness, you will get in the game the kind of feeling you can not get in your life." I asked him what kind of Feeling, he paused for a long time, "can not tell."

A-Kin started two years ago when he came into contact with a small cash loan. He borrowed money to buy an Apple desktop computer with more than 10,000 yuan because "it looks good, simple and generous." After buying only to find that, in fact, the game experience with three or four thousand of the assembly machine is similar, "so it goes."

Then he borrowed three or four times in succession, each time a few thousand dollars, and all repayments on time.

A home can earn millions of people every year, why go high-interest borrow these thousands of dollars?

"If millions are not yours, he will not give you anymore." Ah-chien answered, deeply lamenting that he and his fathers have completely different attitudes toward consumption. "They can not even afford 500 bucks a month. "

I asked what his concept of consumption, the other end of the phone he laughed, "You talk with a junior high school educated people on the concept of spending, then you explain to me what is the concept of consumption."

After a detailed explanation, he paused, "Money must be spent, maybe one day was killed by a car how to do? Do not keep the heritage, spend is wealth."

Tencent "Prism" received an exhaustive report of the user research summary, random survey of 50 users, 20 users play games, and most people will be large recharge, the total cost from tens of thousands of dollars to a few One hundred thousand dollars. In addition, Panda TV, Ying Ke, Dou fish, YY and other live broadcast platform names are also frequently appear in their hobby bar, but also in the live platform for reward users are also numerous. Play money to reward, this kind of wayward people actually exist.

Has worked in the Internet industry for 9 years, operating a different product of the coke can be summed up, the Internet's first wave of dividend is the demographic dividend, people never surf the Internet; the second wave of dividend is from no consumption to consumption, reflecting The concept of consumption of the entire young group, they began to get used to a taxi on the phone, called take-away; play in the live broadcast; recharge the game, or even online charity donations and so on.

More importantly, when they are cash-strapped, they will also think for the first time that they can easily borrow money online.

Attractive gold mine

A cash lending platform concluded in a user survey that "most users face the economic pressures and consumer desires that do not match their income levels and often need to borrow money to spend less than their balance."

Among the users of this platform in-depth interviews, there are real estate agents who spend more than 10 days playing video games and rewarding 50,000 yuan to buy a pair of basketball shoes for themselves. They have to borrow money to rent a home for the New Year's rent Car drivers, there are more than a dozen trips a year entrepreneur.

Without social security, unable to provide a valid proof of assets, there is no central bank personal credit records or "white households", which makes them long excluded from the traditional financial aesthetic.

Huang Yiping, vice president of the National Institute of Development of Peking University, mentioned that financial institutions are usually only willing to serve top 20% of customers. This is a worldwide phenomenon. However, in China, due to such factors as property discrimination, interest rate control and rigid Bad assessment and other factors, the problem of insufficient financial services for SMEs and low-income groups is particularly prominent.

"For example, our previous survey in Zhejiang found that only 20% of small and micro businesses have ever received bank credit, and for example, the central bank's credit reporting system contains information on 880 million people, of whom only 380 million have credit records." He said.

Before making a small cash loan platform, in 2013 Jiao Ke and his partners had been a credit search engine for a while to solve the problem of asymmetric lending information. "It took more than a year to find the wrong way." They quickly discovered that the credit problems in China were not asymmetric information but imbalanced supply and demand, and there were not many products available for credit search engines to search for.

They dredged 100 users to traditional financial institutions, but in the end made only five. Traditional financial institutions do not like these people, according to the traditional credit information system can indeed lend to this crowd.

"China's credit service penetration rate of only 15% -20%, while Europe and the United States can reach 70% -80%. Given China's relatively backward credit environment, even if the penetration rate can only be increased to 50%, it means that the user Groups at least one hundred million to 200 million. "Jiao Ke analysis.

Such a huge potential scale, so that the current stage of small cash lending platform, do not even have to get in the guest how much thought. Because when a demand is a few percent, the channel is less important, "Now the whole network is full of cash loan advertising, we are cast, there is only a cost-effective problem." A small cash loan Said the person in charge of the platform.

Their strategy is to find young, like-loved, downloadable apps as the main channel for ad serving, with social and gaming best performing.

Of course, user experience is crucial for the "Internet Aboriginal" community after 90s. Loan approval rate, approval speed and arrival time, credit line, the current micro-cash loans to users the most sensitive to three points, the rankings are difficult to distinguish.

For example, in the process of applying for registration, all the information that needs to be filled in is the data that some users have in their hands, such as the ID number, the platform will never let users go to the bank to print the proof of salary; the approval speed must be in seconds , Users will not stand longer; In addition, registration ten minutes, approved loans hundreds of "stingy" platform, the user apparently "good faith" is not enough.

In contrast, they are less sensitive to interest because of their small, short-term characteristics. "The same is the annualized 100% interest, by 100 and 200, compared with borrowed 10,000 also 20,000, obviously the former is more acceptable." The person in charge of the platform so explained.

This also led to the small cash lending industry that is still in the blue ocean, the platform has little incentive to take the initiative to reduce interest rates. In the opinion of the chief, a rate cut is something that needs to be considered in the next stage after the market has been fully competitive.

In the eyes of the founder of a medium-sized network loan platform, the micro-cash loan model represents "the most advanced productivity" in the entire Internet finance industry. Because of its access to low cost, low cost of wind control, a large customer base, more importantly, the profitability of cash loans is very strong.

From the IPO file data of the Fun Store, the platform quickly turned around to make a profit from a loss of 233 million yuan to a profit of 577 million yuan after the introduction of a small cash loan business around 2016, with a net profit of 974 million in the first half of 2017 alone. yuan.

In addition, some "smart phones" designed for interest rates can also reduce the user's sensitivity to interest.

A small cash lending platform product director mentioned that the general platform will split the overall interest rate into interest rates (to banks and other financial institutions), platform service fees, toll fees, risk reserves and other parts of the purpose of doing so First, in order to comply with the regulatory requirements for transparent charging, on the other hand, from the perspective of user perception, the platform does provide so many services and users are also more receptive to the overall cost.

As for the industry before the "cut interest rates" (such as the user to apply for 3,000 yuan, but the arrival of only 2800,200 yuan as a service fee charged in advance), due to focus on regulation, combined with the impact on user experience, has now been abandoned by many platforms use.

Who cares if this is usury?

The most controversial petty cash loan is precisely its high interest, even in the name of "loan shark".

The product director told me that the current industry average annualized yield of about 150% -200%. I rough statistics about a few head of small cash lending platform interest rates, of which, the annualized interest rates of goods are generally about 50%; small cash loans, the annualized interest rates are generally around 120%, the minimum also exceeded 80 %.

Two small cash lending platform interest details, the left figure to calculate the annual interest rate of 109.5%, the right figure to calculate the annual interest rate of 116.45%

In the view of Tang Yang, CEO of "Cash Bus", the small loans are short-lived, so the annualized interest converted is invalid to the users, and the users do not have such long-term transactions. "It's just the name, not the interest actually paid by the user."

Credit microcredit loans to users of higher credit costs, but also more risk, higher than the pricing of bank lending rates have their own reasonable. However, such a big deviation also reflects the disorderly and brutal growth of the nascent market.

And Tencent "Prism" is more concerned about is that these young people just need to consumer demand, need such a high price to meet it? Once the over-borrowing is formed, what kind of burden and impact will they have on society?

A similar topic even aroused the interest of Zhu Min, a former vice president of the International Monetary Fund. In a private occasion, he mentioned that at present most of China's residents are heavily leveraged and the future consumer credit is a blue ocean. A big market. One view is that China's residents have low leverage and that consumption can be leveraged. However, in his view, there are still structural problems in spending plus leverage. What remains to be seen remains to be seen.

Chen Zhiwu, a professor of finance at Yale University, mentions in his book "The Logic of Finance," that with the transformation of Chinese social structure and changes in cultural values, the original implicit financial transactions by friendship and friendship (in fact, investment, insurance or credit Economic functions) are being replaced by financial markets in the form of dominant financial transactions.

That is, a similar demand for capital turnover has long existed, only borrowed money from relatives and friends in the past and turned to the small cash loan platform now. In his view, the demand for loans for young people should not be banned. Instead, it should reduce the borrowing fraud and default and the borrowing rate by reforming the institutional environment and developing a personal credit information system.

Zhang Hongyun, a Ph.D. economist, insists that people are all "economic agents" and that "economic agents" make rational decisions. However, the standards of this rationality are not the same. Some over-advanced consumption is not the norm after all. Most people The consumption is well spent, so do not worry too much about it.

She cautioned, however, that some of the desires were created. Young people are still limited based on empirical judgment. Sometimes it is not clear what the consequences of their actions will lead to. The state does not know how big this group is, How large is the scale of consumption, and then multiplied by a factor of K times the multiplier? "This aspect is like a black hole and needs to be guided by social norms to guide its sound development."

It is worth mentioning that, Tencent "Prism" interview with these users, almost without exception, mentioned that the interest of small cash loans too high, they have begun to reduce the frequency of use, or simply no longer used. This phenomenon, perhaps the industry self-purification and shuffling process, forcing no incentive to cut interest rates platform, ahead of time to consider this matter.