Internet finance: Subversive or builder?

The news of the convergence of the Internet and finance has been flooding in the near future. Yesterday, the news said that Ali Finance will be launched next week credit payment, and recently, Pudong Hair Bank SME Business Center General manager Wang Sunan reporters, the bank is working with a platform to discuss cooperation, will be introduced in September, the electric business.

At the beginning of this week, the central bank and other ministries to investigate the Internet financial information is pushing up the heat of the topic. However, the hot topic behind, there is still a calm attitude to observe.

Zenggang, director of banking research at the Institute of Finance at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told reporters that, at least in the short term, internet finance would not hit the status of traditional finance. He believes that the current Internet finance topic is sought after, because several Internet financial business directly facing the retail end, it is easy to produce the illusion of public opinion.

NET does not change the nature of financial industry

Earlier this week, the central bank and other seven ministries to organize research groups, to Shanghai, Hangzhou and other areas of the Internet finance research research. According to reporters who attended the survey report, the research group believes that internet finance has not changed the nature of the financial industry, but by introducing new technology, reducing the threshold for customers and consumers to enter.

The main concern of the research group is that under the new technology situation, internet finance will lead to the existing regulatory means difficult to adapt to the new requirements, and the cross-border operation of Internet finance, but also need to establish a new coordination mechanism between the various regulatory departments. In addition, the research group is concerned about how to protect clients ' rights and interests in such a cross-border operation.

Zenggang reporters that internet finance is not a strict definition, so far, its connotation and extension are not clear. But generally can be divided into three categories: one is the payment industry. So far, the number of licensed Third-party payment agencies has reached 250, Internet payment is the main business of many institutions, the market pattern is now basically mature, and has been effectively regulated by the Central bank.

One is Peer-to-peer (everyone lends). At present, Peer-to-peer industry has not formed more authoritative data. According to rough statistics, now the country has roughly 300 peer-to-peer companies, docking about more than 20 billion loans. Although some provinces and cities for Peer-to-peer industry issued similar financial information Services qualifications, but in fact did not form the effective regulation of the industry. Earlier, the industry has been exposed to a number of platform closures, service providers to flee the case.

such as Taobao, Beijing-east, Tencent and other Internet platform companies docking licensed financial institutions, such as financial institutions, for its platform for merchants, individuals launched financial services. This such as Alibaba's Ali small loan for Taobao merchants to provide microfinance services, the balance treasure is Alipay and Tianhong fund to launch the products, Jingdong Finance in fact, through the cooperation with the Bank to its platform to provide the supplier of credit services ...

A few days ago, Wang Sunan told reporters that the bank is working with a platform to discuss cooperation, will be in September this year to the Electronic business platform to provide "electronic business" credit services. In the cooperation, the electric business platform to the Pudong hair Bank to provide data services, including the Platform Merchant's order, contract volume, inventory, customer unit price, etc. can reflect the financial situation of the Merchant's data, the bank according to the corresponding risk model, calculated its merchant's credit limit.

Zenggang that the product, which was launched through cooperation with licensed financial institutions, did not actually change the nature of financial products, and that its operations were effectively regulated by the corresponding regulatory authorities. However, in terms of customer classification, it also needs to be refined at the regulatory level.

Is the impact exaggerated?

Ma Yun on the internet finance "aggravating theory" ringing, and the topic of the big heat is to let outsiders think this will subvert the survival status of the traditional financial industry. But this argument is too exaggerated in the financial sector and in the eyes of researchers.

The verdict comes from regulators and financial institutions. Liu, deputy governor of the central bank, said in a recent media interview that at present and in the future for quite a long time, the business volume of the three major Internet financial sectors will not shake the traditional financial business. "At present, the financial institutions of the loan balance of more than 68 trillion yuan, peer-to-peer even if done well, the next 5 years may also be difficult to reach 1% of this size." ”

The chairman of a joint-stock bank recently expressed similar views. He said that should admit Alibaba payment business and so on traditional commercial Bank business model subversion, especially after the entry of the mainstream society, consumer payment platform more choice of Internet, the impact on traditional banks, but the current influence is exaggerated, because the bank many business functions of internet companies do not have, such as the creation of currency functions, card-issuing derivative functions.

Zenggang that, at present, the development of internet finance is unlikely to have influence on the deposit and loan business of traditional banking. First, the deposit business is a licensed business, which, in the present case, is unlikely to be liberalized; He said that by the end of June this year, China's banking sector has reached 141 trillion of the scale of assets, Ali small loans in the operation for several years to achieve the ultimate, also reached about 26 billion of the scale. This volume is negligible compared to traditional banks.

However, he believes that in the case of traditional banking, where the impact of internet finance is likely to be in the channel. "If the major economic activity in the future takes place on the Internet platform, then a platform like Taobao and Jingdong may have a knock-on impact on banks," he said. "But that's not a big possibility," he said, "Although Taobao's trading volume is large, the biggest trading volume in China's economy is happening between companies." Will PetroChina use Taobao? ”

Zenggang also believes that, from the income point of view, these Internet platform companies mainly play a channel role, earning the channel costs, the real spreads by the traditional financial institutions, financial providers to earn.

Of course, it should not be overlooked that the integration of the Internet and finance has brought new opportunities for the business development of traditional financial industry. The expansion of channels, product innovation, the innovation of the mode of exhibition, the innovation of risk screening and control means are the changes brought by the combination of the two to the traditional financial industry.