Internet Financial Martyrs Chongfu: The death of "financial gome" painful transformation

7 years after the establishment, Chongfu Investment Consultants Limited ("Chongfu"), a retail financial business consulting and micro-finance management technology as the main business of the financial advisory body, trying to open the door to the capital market. Chongfu founder, President Sun Rei has served in Hong Kong listed companies Gaoyang technology, and in two years to become the Gaoyang of the general manager of Science and Technology finance. After that, Sun Rei, who did not want to be a senior worker, changed his job two times until he started his own business. and Sun Rei Entrepreneurial starting point is to choose to sell a variety of financial products online. As one of the first to eat crabs in the Internet finance field, Chongfu first tasted the dilemma of the early industry: the sale of funds, insurance and financial products is mainly dependent on the traditional sales channels, Chongfu in the traditional sales market does not take advantage. "Finance is very traditional in the whole Chinese market system and has strong monopoly barriers." "Sun Rei thinks. In the traditional channel in the short term can not be replaced by the Internet under the current situation, Chongfu experienced a painful transformation. And through the banking consulting business, Chongfu gradually find self-confidence, and in the advisory mode of innovation, to create "consulting factory", the final realization of the long cycle, two or three months of training in one or two weeks to complete. And under the inspiration of the internal innovation, Chongfu into a rapid growth period: 2009 to achieve break-even and maintain profitability, 2012-year income close to 100 million yuan, 2013 is expected to achieve 200 million yuan income. As of the end of December 2012, Chongfu has been carrying out retail banking and small micro-finance business cooperation with more than 9 national banks, 19 regional banks, 282 banks and provincial branches nationwide. Premature "financial gome" "to build a ' financial gome ', sell a variety of financial products online." "This is the original dream of the Chongfu team. With this in mind, Sun Rei and Chen Lichong from August 2006 to build the online financial supermarket "Chongfu Network", and formed a team of more than 10 people, the main focus on the operation of the Chongfu network. This is the early embryonic form of internet finance in China. Chongfu Network put forward to create "wealth management Baidu", "financial Gome" slogan, and began a wide range of promotional activities, trying to "play to the internet to improve the visibility of the site": with Sohu and other network media cooperation, and the traditional media such as radio cooperation, active in all kinds of financial activities. "At that time we judged the annual fund new purchase and the newly issued foundation at the level of 800 billion yuan, provided to the sales market, the yield is about 1.5%, that is, 12 billion yuan." "Chongfu Vice President Chen Lichong recalls Chongfu initial judgment, the market is big enough, so began to fund sales as a breakthrough, and hope to eventually expand the product category to include insurance, stocks, trusts, funds and banking products, including comprehensive asset allocation services. However, Chongfu's Abacus did not do fine. It has been proved that the sales of funds, insurance and financial products are mainly dependent on the traditional sales channels, Chongfu in the traditional sales market does not occupy an advantage. A year in 2007, the Chongfu of funds sold through the network platform earned less than millions of advisers,Together with other products, the distribution of income is only millions of yuan. "Finance is a dinosaur, in the entire Chinese market system is very traditional, it seems to be replaced by the Internet, but it is still a genuine existence, there are strong monopoly barriers." Sun Rei began to realise that the real "financial Gome" had yet to come. 2.5 time in the past, the initial investment nearly ran out, Chongfu network began to face survival problems. Sun Rei Rethinking: "Internet finance was too early." "If you do not change, the company is facing the reality that cannot continue to operate." Chen Lichong recalls that at the beginning of 2008, Chongfu, who had spent more than his time, faced life and death. Chongfu had to make mass layoffs. In just three months, the number of teams has dropped from 130 in the end of 2007 to 30 in March 2008. "Live first, and pay the wages out first." "It was Sun Rei's greatest wish at the time. Rethinking the "financial Gome" stage of entrepreneurship, Sun Rei that there are four reasons for failure: not grasp the time point of entrepreneurship, the understanding of the industry is not deep enough, the team lacks the internet gene, there is no stable financial support. Summing up the lessons of failure, Sun Rei set several principles for the new business: to be a team player and familiar, to work with a relatively robust channel and to have cash flow. Transformation Banking "Consulting factory" internet finance, the road to Chongfu, what is the new transformation in the end what to do? To which business as a point of entry? After thinking deeply, Sun Rei decided to return to work, and turned to the bank consulting business with small investment and high profit. This is also Sun Rei in Gaoyang Science and technology work during the main content. Sun Rei kept saying to himself: "Live first, this is the most important." "After the 2008 financial crisis, the bank's traditional deposit-taking loans, the extensive mode of operation is no longer the scenery." "The timing of the banking transition is right," he said. "Five years later, Sun Rei recalls. However, the road to Chongfu's transformation is not smooth sailing. At that time, the bank was more superstitious about foreign consulting firms, so that Chongfu gave a low price and failed to get orders, which once made the team very "annoyed." In the same period, the Chinese banking industry has also quietly changed, many bank outlets from the main counter business gradually transformed into a variety of financial products sales. Previous work and entrepreneurship let Sun Rei found that the bank has been in the promotion of funds, but did not provide more services, so he put forward the "Fund diagnostics Service" approach-for the customer diagnosis of the fund is reasonable, customer satisfaction with the analysis, will naturally turn to the consultation of the Bank to buy funds. In order to find orders, Sun Rei ran to the people's Livelihood bank, to find branches of old colleagues to help. However, the change of identity has made the relationship between old colleagues more subtle. Sun Rei recalls: "A lot of colleagues take care of you to eat well and drink well, and then ' goodbye ', this way." "Throughout 2008, Chongfu only received three orders, the turnover is 15000 yuan, 50,000 yuan and 150,000 yuan." The first order comes from a former colleague from Minsheng Bank. The 2008 financial crisis led to poor sales performance, Minsheng Bank, a newly-built small branch faced sales performanceGreat challenge. With the new concept of fund diagnosis, Chongfu got the first order of 15000 yuan. The second order is also from the Sun Rei Ruanmoyingpao, "The old customers see me come all the way, I am sorry to refuse." After training, the branch's net income increased from 170,000 to more than 80 million. With this project, Chongfu finally won a reputation, a 150,000 yuan order came. Since then, through the banking consulting business Chongfu gradually find self-confidence. Sun Rei introduced that from 2009 onwards, Chongfu has been profitable and has maintained a profitable state. "In 2009, it reached $ hundreds of thousands of in the previous year, increasing at least twice a year since then." According to the data provided by Chongfu, the market in the banking consultation market is more than trillion yuan, the company engaged in consulting training in this field is nearly 3,000, of which, Chongfu's market share is only 3%. "We are the industry's highest market share of a company, if the future we can exceed 20% or even 30%, then the outlook is very large." "Chen Lichong said. It is reported that Chongfu's banking consulting business for the company's contribution to the profit can reach about 40%. In recent years, Chongfu began to innovate in consulting mode, to create a "consulting factory" model, the final realization of the long cycle, two or three months of training in one or two weeks to complete. Up to now, Chongfu has more than 360 full-time financial advisers, providing advisory and training services to more than 8 major headquarters and 200 bank and provincial branches nationwide. In the small micro-credit loan field, the huge blue ocean began to arouse more and more attention because of the stagnation development of the Shing loan interest rate, the increase of capital cost and the concentration of large loan risk. "You know so much about banking, and technology is so advanced, why not make some direct loans to small businesses through internet banks and do it by entrusting loans?" The Vice president of a bank head Sun Rei. According to statistics, China has a total of 60 million of small and medium-sized enterprises, they created 69% of GDP, 75% of village jobs, 50% of the national tax, but the proportion of access to bank credit is only 10%. "Limited by manpower and technology, the bank's loan business is mainly in the face of large and medium-sized enterprises, small enterprises are not covered." Sun Rei recalls that, starting in 2009, he began to think about the possibility of carrying out small micro-finance business, expecting to promote the business by taking risks, entrusting loans and partly compensating them. May 2011, Chongfu small micro-finance business to the small and medium-sized banks in a comprehensive market, mainly including loan marketing, loan system, credit automation assessment technology and loan risk management for financial loan services. "Generally do small microfinance companies, since not particularly aware of banks, most of them will be made into microfinance companies or guarantee companies, the technical content is not high, and we in the long-term advisory services to banks in the process of discovering the lack of small micro-finance technology, so it is combined with our technology for small and medium-sized banks to provide services. "Sun Rei will be nineRich positioning for the "small micro-financial technology service provider." In Chongfu's view, the financial institution represented by Minsheng Bank, its customer positioning is more than 1 million of small loans, and mainly mortgage-backed loans. In this respect, Chen Lichong analysis: "Compared to the fixed cost and salary design of the bank, the loan scale is smaller and they are not economical." "At present Chongfu small micro-finance business mainly and small and medium-sized banks, including urban commercial banks and rural credit cooperatives, to provide the amount of credit loans under 1 million." Specifically, it is to provide these banks with small micro-finance loan bulk marketing, standard operations, centralized audit technology, to promote small and medium-sized banks landing to promote micro-finance business. Chongfu according to the bank's loan balance and the new SME loan forecast in recent years, China's small micro financial market will reach at least 30 trillion yuan in the next five years. Microfinance, which contributed 30% of the revenue to Chongfu in 2012, accounted for half of the income in the first half of 2013. Small microfinance, Chongfu will sign a small microfinance agreement with the bank, for a period of three to five years of long-term cooperation, and send a marketing team to apply for loans to the user audit. Chongfu will be provided to the bank through the audited list of users, and the bank ultimately decides whether to provide the loan and the final amount of the loan. As at the end of December 2012, Chongfu has provided 10 banks with micro-credit plant process design, credit evaluation model, post loan management and technical system construction, providing direct credit evaluation service for over 200,000 small micro clients. Sun Rei introduced that Chongfu has now been involved in third-party payments, Internet power providers to provide services to the future, not excluding 7,000 microfinance companies and internet peer-to-peer companies to provide micro-finance technical support. 2012, Chongfu income is close to 100 million yuan, 2013 is expected to exceed 200 million yuan. According to the introduction, the company has begun to contact with brokers to explore the relevant issues of listing. "The listing has two purposes, the first is to raise funds to support business development, the second is to get the listing status, to obtain credibility." Chen Lichong said that as a listed company and banking cooperation will "make them more comfortable."