On April 10, the General Administration of Market Supervision imposed an administrative penalty on Alibaba Group's monopolistic behaviors such as "choose one from two" and imposed a sky-high fine of182.28 million yuan, which was the biggest fine issued by China's anti-monopoly law enforcement. This time, it is mainly aimed at the punishment of Ali's monopolistic behavior, and has not yet involved the financial supervision and related treatment of Ant Financial. What regulatory signals have been released by the sky-high ticket? What is the impact on financial technology supervision? Where are the ants going? What is the regulatory direction of financial technology in the future?
Ant Group started with a micropayment license. With the huge domestic Internet traffic dividend, it has seized the pain point of traditional finance. In more than ten years, the little ant has become the largest unicorn in the world. We should objectively affirm the great innovative contribution of ants in financial technology, mobile payment and inclusive finance, but we should also face up to its serious problems in financial business compliance, leverage control and unfair competition.
abstract
1, Ali sky-high ticket releases three major policy signals.
First, the punishment is fast and the amount is high, which has benchmarking significance and demonstrates the determination and strength of anti-monopoly law enforcement. On February 24th last year, 65438+ General Administration of Market Supervision filed an investigation on Alibaba, and a fine of 107 was issued, which was only 182 billion yuan. Compared with 20 15 China's antitrust investigation against Qualcomm, it lasted 15 months and was fined 6 billion yuan, which is obviously more deterrent and instructive. This case is destined to become a milestone in the anti-monopoly of China and even the world in the Internet field, which shows China's determination and courage in anti-monopoly.
Second, the initial intention of supervision is to guide the standardized development of the platform economy, rather than targeting an Alibaba enterprise. The emergence of monopoly is, to a certain extent, an inherent defect in the development of the free market, and anti-monopoly is also the normal behavior of the government's tangible hand to regulate the market order. On June 6th last year, 165438+ The General Administration of Market Supervision held an administrative guidance meeting to standardize the order of network economy, involving as many as 27 enterprises including Meituan, JD.COM and Alibaba. On March 3, the Municipal General Administration of Supervision imposed administrative penalties on unfair purchase prices in five communities, and was fined 6.5438+0.5 million yuan for buying more vegetables. This punishment is mainly aimed at the "two-in-one" monopoly behavior, not at an Alibaba enterprise. The People's Daily commented that punishment is "a norm for the development of enterprises, a cleaning and purification of the industry environment, and a powerful maintenance of fair competition market order", and "pulling sleeves" is also a kind of love. The initial intention of the country to promote the healthy and sustainable development of the platform economy has not changed.
Third, Alibaba boots land, will the supervision of ants be far behind? Since the listing of Ant was suspended in June 5438+065438+1October last year, the IPO of JD.COM Digital Branch was also suspended on April 6, and the business model and supervision system of Internet financial technology are facing major adjustments. Financial business and technology business are separated, and financial business will be regulated. Those who meet the requirements must apply for a financial control license. In the short term, referring to financial companies and technology companies, it is inevitable that the valuation of financial technology will shrink; In the long run, the regulatory guidance encourages both innovation and risk prevention. The business model of financial technology should be changed from scene, flow and ecology to better serve the real economy and inclusive finance and improve the hard power of science and technology.
2. How to supervise and dispose of ants in the next step? In the current turbulent public opinion, we think it is very important for professionals to remain objective and rational and prevent two extreme views.
The first is to completely obliterate the historical contribution of ants in financial innovation. Ants themselves build big data assets based on Ali consumption scenarios, build moats with technological innovations such as blockchain and cloud computing, optimize mobile payment, facilitate people's daily lives, and rely on big data credit reporting and risk control to make financial resources benefit more long-tail customers, fulfill corporate social responsibilities in eco-environmental protection and epidemic monitoring, and create social value. In a word, ants have made contributions to society in mobile payment, technological innovation, improving financial efficiency and its inclusiveness.
The second is that regulation inhibits innovation and discourages entrepreneurship. With more and more financial innovations represented by ants, new problems such as data security, user privacy and monopoly are gradually emerging. This round of regulatory upgrading is not only aimed at an ant enterprise, but also from the perspective of preventing systemic risks and macro-prudence, predicting risks, making timely moves, and clarifying the basic rules of "licensed operation" of financial technology. The initial intention is to protect the interests of consumers and small and medium-sized investors and promote the better development of financial technology enterprises in the direction of compliance, inclusiveness and hard power. In short, the purpose of supervision is to promote the stable and healthy development of the industry from the perspective of legal compliance, rather than to eliminate or crack down on a certain industry or enterprise.
3. Are ants financial or technological in nature?
Ant is not a traditional financial institution. Big data and technological innovation are the underlying logic that supports their success. Ant was born out of Alibaba's Taobao payment business. At present, the contributions of payment, wealth management, lending and insurance services are 36%, 16%, 39% and 8% respectively. The financial management department requires Ant Financial to set up a financial holding company according to law and implement the regulatory positioning. But in-depth analysis of its business model, the core competitiveness of ants is technology and data. They provide financial services through drainage, loan assistance and joint loans, and do not directly bear interest rate risk, credit risk and liquidity risk, which is essentially different from the traditional financial business that earns the difference between deposits and loans. Therefore, traditional financial supervision methods cannot be simply applied. Looking at the pattern and phenomenon of ants objectively, the key is whether it can better meet people's financial service needs and give consideration to efficiency and fairness. It is necessary to encourage financial innovation and support the new economy, while at the same time preventing evasion of supervision and regulatory arbitrage. In the face of financial technology innovation, there should also be innovative supervision technology.
4. What is the secret of ants becoming elephants?
Analysis of the ant model: "Exploding products, opening platforms, and creating ecology" is a three-step process, interlocking, and cutting into various tracks of financial technology with Internet thinking.
1) making products: the product design of traditional financial institutions is often based on their own capabilities, regulatory policies and other constraints, "having products first, then finding customers", while the Internet genes owned by ants are just the opposite, making products based on customer needs. Count the explosive products such as Alipay, Yu 'ebao, Borrowing Bai, Flower Bai and Mutual Bao. All of them are based on customer needs, greatly lowering the threshold, paying close attention to the user experience, filling the gap in the traditional financial model and attracting hundreds of millions of traffic in a short time.
2) Make a platform: Ants know that their advantages are technology and data. 20 17, ants adopt an open platform strategy. First, connect its mature business with external financial institutions, and drain it to financial institutions through loan assistance, joint loan and sales diversion. The second is to export its strong risk control ability and operational ability to financial institutions in the form of solutions. Not only transfer risks such as interest rate, credit and liquidity, but also charge technical service fees.
3) Doing ecology: horizontally, ants have replicated this business model overseas, with nearly 300 million overseas users and 4-5% overseas income; Vertically, ants turn to technology companies, export the low-level technologies in digital currency, Ant Chain, Ant Cloud and other fields, build themselves into a financial technology ecosystem, and establish infrastructure to serve the government and national strategy.
5. What do you think of the upgrade of ant supervision?
On the one hand, the supervision of financial technology has been upgraded, and the ant business is facing reshaping. Recently, the new regulations on online small loans and the removal of Internet bank deposits have had an obvious impact on the ant business. Some people think that ants put too much leverage, causing regulatory concerns and leading to the suspension of IPO. Of the 2 trillion loans of Ant Financial, only 36.2 billion were on the balance sheet, and ABS products issued 654.38+07 billion, most of which were transferred off the balance sheet in the form of joint loans and loan assistance. Ants rely on a small amount of investment to obtain a higher share of profits, while avoiding their own default risk. Despite the escort of technology and data, such a large amount of credit was passed on to financial institutions or investors. Once the extreme environment and risk control mode fail, the hidden social cost is immeasurable.
On the other hand, the anti-monopoly punches and the platform economy is brought into supervision. Both the Politburo meeting and the Central Economic Work Conference emphasized "strengthening anti-monopoly and preventing unnecessary expansion of capital". Undeniably, China's platform economy has developed rapidly and created value for the society. However, with the support of mobile internet technology and large-scale capital, the new economy has formed a natural monopoly with faster speed, wider coverage and stronger user stickiness. The negative externalities brought by platform monopoly may be greater, such as endangering consumers' rights and interests, squeezing surplus value, squeezing the living space of small enterprises, eliminating competition, infringing consumers' rights and interests, and even kidnapping the financial system.
On February 26th, 65438, China People's Bank, China Banking Regulatory Commission, China Securities Regulatory Commission, Foreign Exchange Bureau and other financial management departments jointly interviewed Ant again, "pointing out the main problems existing in the current operation of Ant Group: the corporate governance mechanism is not perfect; Lack of legal awareness, contempt for regulatory compliance requirements, illegal regulatory arbitrage; Use market dominance to crowd out operators in the same industry; Damage the legitimate rights and interests of consumers and trigger consumer complaints. "
"The Financial Management Department put forward rectification requirements for the key business areas of Ant Group: First, return to the source of payment, enhance the transparency of transactions, and prohibit unfair competition. The second is to operate personal credit information business in compliance with laws and regulations to protect the privacy of personal data. The third is to set up financial holding companies according to law, strictly implement regulatory requirements, and ensure sufficient capital and compliance with related party transactions. The fourth is to improve corporate governance, and strictly rectify illegal financial activities such as credit, insurance and wealth management in accordance with the requirements of prudential supervision. The fifth is to carry out securities fund business according to law, strengthen the governance of securities institutions, and carry out asset securitization business in compliance. "
The slowdown of ant IPO is a macro-prudential stress test of supervision, which provides valuable experience for objectively evaluating the impact of financial technology and formulating regulatory rules; For ants, it will be an opportunity to upgrade the business model and lead the development direction of financial technology; For the industry, it is conducive to long-term stable and healthy development, better serve consumers and contribute to society.
6. How to effectively supervise ants? New opportunities and challenges in the future?
Ant model is the product of the alternation of old and new economies, which has played a catfish effect and challenged the traditional financial institutions and regulatory structures.
New finance calls for new supervision. The new supervision will be behavioral supervision and functional supervision, using big data to improve supervision ability, timely discovering and controlling market risks, encouraging capital to flow into new economic fields and preventing systemic risks.
Risk warning: There are uncertainties in the upgrading of financial supervision and the acquisition and use of big data resources, which have an impact on its business model.