The report of the 19th National Congress proposed that we should implement the new development concept and build a modern economic system.
In this regard, it is an important content to improve the system and mechanism of promoting consumption and enhance the basic role of consumption in economic development. In recent years, consumption has replaced investment as the first driving force of economic growth. Behind this, the innovation of payment methods brought by technical means has contributed greatly, and installment consumption is one of them. "Spend tomorrow’s money and enjoy today’s resources", whether it is life consumption such as digital electronics, home appliances and furniture, or service consumption such as training, tourism and entertainment, the tentacles of phased consumption have extended to all aspects of life.
Can installment consumption really make people enjoy life ahead of schedule easily? In the face of the network staging platform with spurt growth, how should consumers rationally stage and make good use of staging?
How hot is the market?
"It is no exaggeration to say that more than 90% of college students around me have used installment consumption, and food, clothing, housing and transportation, leisure and entertainment can all be solved by installment consumption."
"With children at home, the requirements for environmental sanitation are relatively high. My British Dyson vacuum cleaner was made of JD.COM white stripes. I often shop in JD.COM, and I can avoid paying interest by installments with coupons. It is much more economical to installment this year than to use a bank credit card. " Hao Yihang, an employee of a large state-owned enterprise in Beijing, is a fan of JD.COM IOUs. In his words, the slogan of "Consumption by stages, so that youth does not leave blank" attracts young people. The service of "Shopping first, paying later" and "30 days interest-free and staging at will" makes life consumption zero obstacles. "Consumption by stages is so cool!"
It reduces the pressure of one-time payment, and the relaxed shopping experience of "installment consumption" makes people happy. Hao Yihang said that Apple’s upcoming iPhone X, which he also intends to buy in stages, will not cause economic pressure and keep up with the trend. Staging consumption can make the monthly salary diversified and meet more new consumption needs.
The application method is flexible, the application procedure is convenient, there is no need for mortgage guarantee, and the approval speed is fast. With these characteristics, installment consumption quickly wins the favor of young people. The group represented by "post-90 s" grew up in the era of rapid development of the Internet, and accepted new technologies, new things and new products with a high degree. Pursuing efficiency and enjoying the present are their main consumption concepts, and this group is the main force of phased consumption.
"It is no exaggeration to say that more than 90% of college students around me have used installment consumption, and food, clothing, housing and transportation, leisure and entertainment can all be solved through installment consumption." Wang Peng is a junior in a university in Beijing. As early as when he first entered school, he began to use installment consumption, which was very convenient.
"This year, the money I signed up for the TOEFL training class was solved by stages. A TOEFL class costs more than 30 thousand yuan, and I ask my parents directly. I’m a little embarrassed. After using the staging platform, I will take out some money from the living expenses to repay the loan on schedule every month. Although there is some interest, I think it is worthwhile. " Wang Peng said that installment consumption is very common among college students, ranging from buying computers and mobile phones, education and training, to recharging phone bills and purchasing tickets for movies. They all like to choose installment.
In the past two years, the installment consumption platform has developed rapidly, especially the "internet plus installment consumption" platform has made up for the shortcomings of the traditional financial industry and served the groups that it failed to cover. Recently, the industry has welcomed the "regular army", banks have returned to the field of campus installment consumer credit, and the market is gradually standardizing. According to the forecast of relevant institutions, in the past five years, the average annual growth rate of installment consumption loans exceeded 20%.
How tempting is it?
Some merchants deliberately weaken the intermediary fees and induce consumers with the gimmick of "low threshold, zero interest and zero down payment", while the handling fee and service fee behind the products are actually higher than the interest.
"I obviously bought a 5799 yuan mobile phone, but the final repayment was more than 1700 yuan, which means that I spent nearly 8000 yuan on this mobile phone. Although the mobile phone was used more than one year in advance, it also paid a price. " Speaking of installment consumption, Zhao Xiaoxian, a chef in a restaurant in Hefei, Anhui Province, felt quite helpless. "It is very difficult for migrant workers like me who have no stable income to apply for bank credit cards. Online merchants lied to me that installment consumption threshold is low, procedures are convenient and interest is low. However, in the final calculation, the handling fees are higher than the interest. "
Dong Ximiao, a senior researcher at Chongyang Financial Research Institute of Renmin University of China, believes that the staged consumer market is developing rapidly, but the good and the bad are mixed, and many services are falsely advertised. The main purpose of staging business on the consumer platform is to expand users’ staging consumption, but the way to expand customers mainly comes from offline, and salesmen are easy to cheat and induce consumers for the sake of performance. Some merchants deliberately weaken the intermediary fees, and basically induce consumers with the gimmick of "low threshold, zero interest and zero down payment", while the handling fee and service fee behind the products are actually higher than the interest, which makes consumers feel miserable.
"The development of bank credit card business is relatively mature, and both the bank’s own risk control system and regulatory regulations are relatively perfect. However, the staged market has outstanding problems such as false propaganda and induced sales promotion in a fierce competitive environment. " Dong Ximiao said.
The installment consumption business of traditional commercial banks is standardized, mainly for consumers with stable income. Consumers have lower risk in using it and can effectively protect their rights and interests. The market gap that traditional commercial banks can’t cover has inspired the rise of Internet staging platforms, which have low thresholds and are aimed at social groups such as students and migrant workers. Coupled with the lag of regulatory policies, some disadvantages of installment consumption are constantly emerging.
For example, it is inevitable that unqualified consumers will default in time on the staging platform. Salespeople usually "salute before soldiers", but the effect of "collection" will be linked to performance. Because there is no standardized and legalized collection supervision policy at present, there are different kinds of violent collection behaviors in the staged market in reality.
The risk of disclosure of personal information makes installment consumption a safety hazard. Many people have encountered the problem of "receiving a collection message without a loan" and "being registered under an assumed name without registration". Most people will choose to ignore it, but doing so may affect consumers’ credit information and bring inconvenience to life and work.
In addition, from the consumer’s own point of view, staged consumption increases irrational consumption behavior. The amount of payment is reduced when the installment is consumed, which makes people have the illusion of spending less. The risk monitoring measures of many platforms are not in place, which may easily lead to credit problems such as overdue default by unqualified consumers.
How hard is it to choose?
By means of digital management and information sharing, we will strengthen the construction of credit system and prevent multi-head lending. Consumers should abandon vanity, comparison and blind obedience.
Behind the popularity of installment consumption, how can we rationally use and manage installment consumption?
Dong Ximiao believes that from the perspective of regulators, we should continue to carry out the special rectification of Internet finance and increase the cleaning and rectification of various stages of consumption platforms. For the platform with disorderly operation and chaotic management, if it fails to pass the filing in accordance with the regulations, measures should be taken to resolutely close it.
"At present, China’s credit information market still needs to be further improved, and the problem of long-term lending in the industry has not been completely solved. I believe that after the sharing of credit information data at the national level in the future, the whole industry will develop more healthily and orderly." Dong Ximiao said.
Credit data is an important link in risk control of phased consumption platform. Companies such as Taobao, JD.COM, Ctrip, etc., which have mastered the consumption scenes of hundreds of millions of users, have a large user base and many data resources, and can keenly capture the credit rating of users, and the cost of risk control is low. It is difficult for other financial platforms to accurately judge consumers’ credit information "Facebook".
"Now, for installment consumption, we have to put a lot of energy into risk prevention and control. It can be said that if the risk control is done well, the operating cost will be reduced, and the platform installment consumption interest rate will be reduced accordingly, thus attracting more quality customers." Gao Sheng, the public relations director of Staged Music Mall, said, "For example, we are now using artificial intelligence technology to develop ‘ Hawkeye ’ The intelligent risk control engine has more than 6,000 risk control model data variables, which can greatly improve the efficiency of risk control audit. "
Dong Ximiao suggested strengthening the construction of credit infrastructure, consolidating and enriching the credit information system by means of digital management and information sharing, improving the risk identification ability and risk prevention efficiency of installment consumption business, and enabling institutions and customers to enjoy more convenience in inclusive finance.
Banks and internet platforms should further improve or establish their own risk assessment and monitoring systems, objectively evaluate users’ consumption levels, and reasonably set credit lines; Staging consumption business institutions and platforms should correctly carry out marketing propaganda, put an end to false propaganda and induced propaganda, and set up necessary punishment mechanisms.
For consumers, we should carefully choose between bank credit card and installment payment platform, and try to choose a bank credit card with a more formal and perfect management system. If you choose the internet installment consumption platform, you should carefully check how to calculate the installment consumption interest, handling fee and service fee to prevent being charged with high interest and service fee.
"Installment consumption is a form of prepayment. If the repayment is overdue, it will not only increase the overdue interest, but also affect their credit rating, and even some financial institutions will terminate the installment business." Dong Ximiao said that consumers should abandon the bad mentality of vanity, comparison and blind obedience, carefully weigh whether the purchase of goods is reasonable, and formulate reasonable consumption and repayment plans to avoid over-consumption and over-consumption.
The insiders believe that for platforms with relatively standardized operations, the principle of "same business, same supervision" should be adopted to implement penetrating supervision, safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of financial consumers and protect the security of personal information. At the same time, we will strengthen the monitoring of the installment business it provides in terms of loan purposes and capital flow. Consumers should also enhance their risk awareness, strengthen the study of financial consumption and network security knowledge, and not disclose personal information at will to improve their ability to identify and prevent bad businesses.
What are the installment consumption platforms? (link)
In the past two years, staged consumption platforms have mushroomed, with different application scenarios and different characteristics.
JD.COM White Strip: the first Internet consumer financial product in the industry. You can enjoy a deferred payment period of up to 30 days or a payment by installments of up to 24 days if you use white bars for payment on JD.COM website. In recent years, JD.COM White Bar has been integrated into more consumption scenes, gradually covering the fields of renting, tourism, decoration, education, wedding and so on, extending from credit purchase service to providing credit consumption loans to provide credit consumption services for more consumers.
Ant Flower Garden: Born in the e-commerce department, it mainly supports multi-scene shopping. Its main application scenarios are Taobao and Tmall. Recently, it has also settled in most e-commerce shopping platforms, such as Amazon, Suning and local life service websites, such as word of mouth, Meituan, public comment, etc., and also involved some overseas shopping websites.
Staging music: Staging music in the staged shopping mall under Lexin Group is a new consumption platform of "e-commerce+finance". The shopping mall consumption scene involves 3C digital, outdoor sports, beauty care, eating, drinking and having fun, etc. It is the official authorized distributor of Apple mobile phones. The platform provides phased consumption services for mainstream consumer groups such as young people and white-collar workers.
Consumer finance company: it is a non-bank financial institution that provides unsecured and unsecured consumer loans. According to the "2017 Internet Consumer Finance Development Report and Outlook" by Suning Financial Research Institute, there are currently 22 licensed consumer finance companies in China, of which banks account for more than 90%. Consumer finance companies have offline channels, and offline outlets basically involve the whole country. Many licensed financial consumer companies have launched in-store consumption business to expand the financial consumer market. With the development of internet finance in recent years, many consumer finance companies have begun to cooperate with e-commerce platforms to develop online consumer credit business.
(Song Chao)
