From popularity to low tide, what did the ＂P2P online loan＂ feast leave？
Seeing such words as "high interest rate" and "high return", the public should be extra alert and raise their awareness of prevention. Evening News reporter Wei Chi Jianping photo
At the end of August, Tianjin Public Security Peace Branch and Binhai New Area Branch successively issued announcements to investigate 11 online lending platforms suspected of illegally absorbing public deposits. So far, illegal online lending platforms in Tianjin have been basically cleaned up. As a hot industry, P2P (person-to-person loan) has attracted a lot of attention and funds since its birth. Many people invest in financial management on the platform, and many people also borrow money on the platform. Now most of the online lending platforms have been cleaned up, and only a very small part is still in operation. These platforms, which are still in operation, stated that they would "quit benign", that is, completely quit the online loan industry.
Since June 2018, a large number of P2P platforms have experienced a redemption crisis. Some platform controllers have run away, and it is difficult for fund lenders (wealth managers) to get back the investment principal and interest. After investigation by local public security departments, these P2P platforms have violated the red line of "no fund pool" and are suspected of illegally absorbing public deposits.
From the popularity of the past to the ebb tide of today, what has this industry brought to the society and left behind?
Someone’s in jail
September is the season of school. After three years in the workplace, Xiaolei (pseudonym) stepped into the campus again to study for graduate students. He graduated from an undergraduate college in this city three years ago, and made an appointment with his roommate to study for graduate students three years later. Now, his roommate friend has been detained for violating the criminal law. This student graduated and entered the P2P online loan industry.
When Xiao Lei graduated, some students in the class wanted to take the civil service exam, while others wanted to enter the banking and securities industries. However, due to fierce competition, most of Xiaolei’s classmates failed to do so.
At that time, the concept of internet finance was in full swing, and a large number of emerging financial companies appeared in the market. They recruited soldiers and promised high salaries to attract college students to join. Gang Lin (a pseudonym), a classmate of Xiaolei, was admitted to Tianjin from rural areas. His family was poor and he wanted to get a high income when he graduated. As it happens, a P2P online lending platform in Beijing recruited externally, and he applied successfully.
A year later, Xiao Lei learned from his classmates that Gang Lin was "developed", with a monthly salary of more than 50,000 yuan, and had achieved the position of deputy director of marketing on this platform. At a class reunion, Gang Lin was in high spirits and told her classmates that she would be able to buy a house in Beijing in two months. This made the students very envious, and all the students felt that Gang Lin was really "turned over", and he was no longer the thrifty and wussy person at school.
Xiaolei was not admitted to the civil service, but worked in the financial department of a private enterprise with a monthly salary of more than 6,000 yuan. He learned through some news that some P2P online lending platforms are not matching personal transactions at all, but publishing false targets, attracting investors with super high interest rates and putting investors’ money in their own controlled accounts. These platforms, which are engaged in fund pool business, are suspected of illegally absorbing public deposits, and their behavior is to be convicted and sentenced to jail.
On a weekend, Xiao Lei found Gang Lin, and after asking questions, he carefully asked his classmates, is your platform compliant? Is the mark on it true? Gang Lin said casually that most platforms are fake, and what they do is to pool funds. Hearing this, Xiao Lei was shocked: "We all know the law, and this kind of behavior is punishable. Don’t you know?"
Gang Lin pondered for a while, then slowly began to say that it was not easy for him to get a foothold in the city when he came out of the countryside. Plus going to college before, I spent more than 100 thousand yuan at home, and many of them were borrowed. Doing an ordinary job in the city of Beijing, after deducting rent and living expenses, there is little left, not to mention borrowing money from home. If you resign, you will lose a lot of income.
Xiaolei was angry with his good friend Gang Lin’s explanation, but Gang Lin said that there are thousands of platforms all over the country doing this, and there is nothing wrong with it.
Since June, 2018, Gang Lin’s platform has absorbed less and less funds, but has to pay more and more interest to customers in the early stage, which has gradually led to a financial crisis. The platform controller used to misappropriate customers’ funds, bought several properties in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, and quickly sold them. However, the market was not good and it was difficult to sell them. The company’s capital chain was completely broken, and some investors reported to the Beijing police.
In November 2018, Gang Lin’s platform was put on file for investigation. Xiaolei tried to contact Gang Lin, but found that no one answered the phone and found Gang Lin’s family. Only then did she know that Gang Lin was criminally detained because he was an executive on this platform and mastered the flow of some funds.
Xiaolei urged Gang Lin’s family to let Gang Lin tell the whereabouts of the funds as soon as possible, and actively compensate the investors, so as to get a reduced sentence. However, he found that Gang Lin’s family was not interested in paying back the money and had no hope of reducing the sentence. One of his relatives told Xiaolei that since 2018, the funds absorbed by Gang Lin through its subordinates have not been handed over to the platform, but many properties have been purchased in foreign countries in the name of others. "Now even if he is sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in prison, Gang Lin will be less than 35 years old after he is released from prison, which will not affect him to get married and have children abroad."
Seeing this family doing this, Xiao Lei felt that they were really stubborn.
Someone No Country for Old Men.
According to a survey, the majority of people who invest in financial management on the Internet are middle-aged and elderly people. After more than 15 years of hard work, they have no pressure to mortgage and raise children, and they have some savings in their hands, so they are potential customers of high-interest financial management. As it happens, a large number of P2P online loan financing platforms have emerged on the Internet, which can provide three times higher interest than bank deposits, and let these middle-aged and elderly people fall into the trap.
Wei Dong (pseudonym), a resident of Hedong District, is 48 years old. He was dismissed from a furniture factory two years ago and it is difficult to find a job. Through the Internet, he knows that some P2P online lending platforms can earn 12% to 15% annual interest by investing in them. This kind of return on investment is much higher than that of banks, and it pays interest on a monthly basis.
With the attitude of giving it a try, he took out 200,000 yuan from his home for many years and transferred it to the financial platform through online banking. A month later, he received interest of nearly 3000 yuan. He thinks that if this continues, it will be equivalent to a stable job income. Besides, when I go out to find a job at my age, my income is similar to this interest.
Wei Dong wants more in return. At that time, his parents left him a house of more than 50 square meters. He sold this small house and collected some money to buy a bigger house for his children as a wedding room. However, the child just started working and didn’t want to get married for a short time, so he rented out the house at a rent of 1800 yuan a month.
In the market, his house is worth more than 1.3 million yuan. Wei Dong calculated that if this house is converted into cash and invested in the P2P online lending platform, it will receive interest of more than 10,000 yuan a month! So, he listed the house in the intermediary and sold it at a price lower than the market price of 100,000 yuan, and soon got 1.2 million yuan in cash.
Wei Dong invested all 1.2 million yuan in cash in a certain platform, and recovered 15,000 yuan in interest in the first month, which was several times higher than the rental of the house. He was so excited that he couldn’t sleep. For four consecutive months, he received interest on time. He once felt that his old age was really happy.
Wei Dong’s wife also knows about selling the house. However, the wife is more inclined to deposit a large deposit certificate in the bank or buy a fund for financial management, with an annual income of about 5%. Wei Dong’s wife said, what kind of business do these online platforms make so much money that they can give investors more than 12% interest? Are they better than banks? Wei Dong was speechless, just saying that his wife couldn’t keep up with the times.
The good times didn’t last long. When he invested in the sixth month, Wei Dong didn’t receive the interest on time. He called the customer service number left by the website and no one answered. At the investor forum, it was revealed that this P2P online lending platform had a redemption crisis, the capital chain was broken, and the actual controller and several executives had run away. Wei Dong panicked and rushed to the city where the platform was located to find the company’s registered address. As a result, it was found that the company’s office was sealed up and the door was surrounded by investors from all over the country.
Since then, Wei Dong has been bent on recovering the investment of 1.2 million yuan, and he no longer wants interest, just thinking that the principal can come back. In the rights exchange group, he learned that some people invested more than 5 million yuan in compensation for demolition, and some people, like him, sold their houses to invest.
The family is completely chaotic, and my wife has no mind to dance square dance anymore. My son’s wedding room has no landing, and he dare not talk about the object. Wei Dong lost 15 pounds a month, and he dared not think about his old age in the future.
"benign exit" becomes a common expectation
On August 29th, Dai Mokang, the legal representative of Shanghai Zendai University, a well-known listed company, and others surrendered themselves to the police, claiming that there were illegal acts such as setting up a fund pool and misappropriating funds during the company’s operation, and it was no longer possible to pay them. The Shanghai police said in the circular that Zendai Company illegally absorbed deposits from unspecified public through its online wealth management platform (Shanghai Zendai Aite Financial Information Service Co., Ltd.), and the case is currently under further investigation.
This is just a microcosm. At the heyday of P2P online lending platform, all kinds of business entities and capitals have entered this industry. According to incomplete statistics, in 2017, more than 40 listed companies in China set foot in P2P, and one listed company directly changed its name to "Pipaopi". However, the tide will eventually recede. By the end of August 2019, of the more than 6,900 P2P online lending platforms that once existed in China, more than 6,000 have closed down.
In a few years, investors, platforms and lenders seemed to get together and enjoy an unprecedented feast, but in the end, every participant paid the bill. Many investors have lost their money and are the biggest victims. Some platform controllers and executives have been jailed with criminal records. Most of the netizens who borrowed money from the platform bear super-high interest rates, and now many of them are harassed by the collection calls of "routine loans".
At the end of August, when attending the 2019 China International Intelligent Industry Expo, Ma Yun said that P2P was not Internet finance from the first day, but an illegal fund-raising product with a webpage.
At present, there are more than 700 P2P online lending platforms, many of which declare that they "don’t run away", actively pay off investors, and finally quit. But in fact, many platforms have transferred funds, so promising to the public is only a plan to slow down the troops, and soon the actual controller will surrender or run away. Even if some platforms have the willingness to refund investors, the recovered funds may not be able to make up the hole, and investors can only recover part of the principal.
Why did so many people rush into the P2P online lending platform? Xiao Lei was thinking. When he got together with his classmates to discuss Gang Lin’s case, he was puzzled by Gang Lin’s reluctance to actively refund the investors. Someone asked him, given 10 years, can you earn enough money to buy a house abroad? Xiao Lei said, I can’t. His classmates told him that’s right. Some people are willing to exchange 10 years’ imprisonment for 10 million yuan of assets. Even if you work hard, you can’t earn so much money. In this respect, people actually made a profit from this transaction.
Hearing this, Xiao Lei seems to understand something.
However, in the end, Gang Lin couldn’t stand the torture of conscience. He suddenly repented and decided to sell overseas properties and actively compensate investors in order to get leniency.
Why do ordinary citizens always can’t stand the temptation of high-interest financial management and frequently become "takers" and "reapers", while those "game makers" and "reapers" face obviously insufficient punishment? These hidden problems are worth pondering. Similarly, college graduates blindly pursue high salaries when seeking jobs, ignoring whether the industries they are engaged in are legal and compliant, thus forming wrong values and wealth views, which is more worthy of attention. (Reporter Li Jisen)