P2P online loan: heart-saving pill or life-threatening charm?

Recently, CCTV has reported on the phenomenon of P2P online lending many times, which affirms the positive role of online lending, but also deeply discusses the strange phenomenon that has appeared in this emerging and fast-growing industry.

P2P online lending (peer to peer) is a lending method that was first introduced by foreign countries. P2P means "person to person". With the continuous development of the Internet, the credit industry has also taken advantage of this platform. P2P lending refers to individuals borrowing money from each other through a special online lending platform. The borrower publishes loan information through the website, and the investor lends funds to the borrower through the website.

China's earliest P2P online lending platform was founded in 2007. After several years of downturn, it began to attract the attention of more and more entrepreneurs in 2010, and entered a period of rapid development the following year. Until 2012, when China's online lending platform reached There are more than 2,000, of which several hundred are more active.

The heart-saving pill for borrowers

The reason why P2P online lending is developing rapidly , because it has many advantages. With the help of the online platform, both borrowers and investors can find funds or investment projects more quickly and easily. For China, the popularity of the Internet allows P2P online lending users to cross geographical boundaries, so the scope of lending is wider and the probability of success is also higher. bigger.

But the more important advantage of P2P online lending is that it makes up for the difficulty of financial lending in China, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, the high threshold for listing financing or issuing bonds makes this financing method almost whimsical. As for bank lending, although the state has relevant policies to encourage banks to lend to small and medium-sized enterprises, in fact, banks are more willing to lend to smaller-risk and larger-scale enterprises out of their own benefits. In addition, the bank review process takes a long time, so , it is even more difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises to survive through financing.

Therefore, online loans are favored by small and medium-sized enterprises due to their low threshold, high efficiency, and wide range, and have also become a saviour for their financing.

Investors' life-threatening symbol

Although P2P seems to bring light to the borrower's financing path, however, the high risk of P2P online lending will become investors' life-saving symbol at any time, because investors choose to use P2P websites Investment will face dual risks from the lender and the online lending platform itself.

Investors can easily face borrowers refusing or delaying repayments, especially on sites with loose monitoring mechanisms. Therefore, with the continuous development of P2P, many websites have begun to improve the supervision mechanism, requiring users to upload a series of data certificates, such as ID cards, work certificates, income certificates, etc., and some platforms will also use the Internet, telephone and other channels to verify Borrowers conduct relevant investigations and assessments. This can greatly reduce the risk of investors.

Actually, online lending abroad is very mature, which is mainly due to the sound credit system in many developed countries. Therefore, it is more important to standardize the citizen credit system to avoid the situation where borrowers refuse to repay. For example, the establishment and application of the personal credit system in the United States is relatively complete, including general information such as age, gender, date of birth, as well as information such as educational background, work experience, social medical care, taxation, insurance, bank credit status, and criminal records. Unique social security number (SSN) bundle, so personal credit can be seen at a glance.

However, China's personal credit records only include lending activities with banks and are kept within the banks. There is also a lack of uniform data application and review standards among different online lending platforms. In this way, it is difficult to regulate and supervise the entire industry, and investors' risks cannot be fundamentally avoided. Therefore, the establishment of a unified and standardized credit system can fundamentally solve the risk of online loan default.

In addition to the risk from the borrower defaulting on the payment, what is more noticeable is the risk from the online lending platform. Since the online loan platform is only an intermediary agency, the entry threshold is low, the approval procedures are simple, and the registered capital is small. Therefore, with the continuous emergence of online loan platforms in China, there have also been many website leaders absconding with funds or website closures in recent years.

On December 17, 2012, the website of the online lending platform "Antai Excellence" ceased operation. As of the afternoon of that day, the quilt funds exceeded 1.3 million yuan. A few days later, the person in charge of the website of another online loan platform "Youyi.com" "run away". As of the 25th of the month, more than 20 million yuan of funds were quilted. The earlier online loan platform "Angel Plan" suddenly could not log in in October 2011. After a lapse of one year, the funds invested more than 6 million yuan on the platform have not been recovered, and lenders from various places can only ask the police for help.

This phenomenon is not only risky for investors, but also detrimental to the site or the industry as a whole. Because some websites in the industry have this kind of situation, it will cause the market to worry about the credit of P2P online lending. Therefore, in order to solve the problem of integrity that has plagued the development of the entire industry, the Shanghai Information Service Industry Association organized a number of online credit companies to establish the first "Internet Credit Service Enterprise Alliance" in 2012. The alliance aims to build confidence in the industry from the outside world. , is actively applying for ICP website operation license certification for members, and the member companies of the alliance can share overdue customer information, so that a unified and standardized internal credit system can be formed.

Similar to the above situation, except that industry norms cannot generally avoid such widespread fraudulent behavior, the healthy development of P2P online lending still requires the relevant laws and regulations supervision mechanism of the national government.

P2P online lending has a wide coverage, low financing threshold, and is convenient and fast. It has indeed become an innovative, convenient and effective financing method. However, due to the lack and imperfection of China's supervision mechanism and credit system, the risk of investors has increased Therefore, the internal reform of the industry and the support of national policies can help the healthy development of this booming emerging industry, thereby improving the financing environment for small and medium-sized enterprises.