Internet finance is ushering in a round of major renovation, November 27, the CBIRC chief lawyer Liu Fushou revealed that the Internet financial risks have been dramatically depressed, the national operation of the P2P lending institutions, from the peak of about 5,000, has been completely zero in mid-November this year, the formerly explosive P2P lending is now officially withdrawn from the historical stage. At the beginning of November, the CBIRC also drafted new rules for small loans jointly with the central bank, putting forward clear requirements on many key issues such as institutional access and leverage.
For many young people who are trapped in consumer loans, this is good news that comes late. According to a survey by Rong360, nearly half of the people using consumer loans in China are post-90s, ranking first among their Asian peers. Although the paths and purposes of the loans are different, the outcomes are similar. Whether it’s 50,000, 100,000 or 300,000, the pressure of debt is as heavy as a mountain of debt for young people.
During the debt repayment period, 26-year-old Xiaojiu had a dream about sitting in court and being sentenced to jail because she owed too much money, and she woke up in the middle of the night in bed crying. For the past four years, 28-year-old Seven could only sleep for three to four hours a day, and then went to work the next day in a daze.
When they recalled later how the debt rolled up from a few hundred or a few thousand to such a huge amount, they all felt a bit incredulous, but they all mentioned one feeling: “The money came so easily. “Just sign up for a small loan app, submit your ID information, and immediately you have a few thousand dollars.
“The more you borrow, the larger the line of credit, and the money never seems to run out. “Even if this platform can’t be paid back, there are more than ten other platforms to borrow money to fill the hole anyway.
It’s not just a matter of time, it’s a matter of time. The recent increase in regulatory initiatives will hopefully keep young people from making the same mistakes.
“It’s like a drug addiction,”
The slide into the abyss began unknowingly.
The earliest time she used chants was when she was 20 years old, when she got out of a junior high school for an internship. As a newcomer to society, girls loved to go shopping together, and in order to get along with others, Xiaojiu started borrowing money from flower chants.
Although her internship salary was only a few hundred yuan a month, she had a good credit score because she used Alipay to shop online from an early age, and her chanting line of credit started at nearly one to two thousand yuan.
The fact that a cup of milk tea costing more than 20 yuan and a pair of clothes costing about 100 yuan are nothing compared to the thousands of yuan they cost, and that each of these amounts is small, is a fluke that “I’m sure I’ll be able to pay them back.
This kind of spending money without worrying about life continued until the age of 22. The most prosperous time of her life, no matter how far it is, she always took a taxi and opened an annual membership to almost every video platform, “My VIP status is hanging there, I can watch anytime I want! “The first time I bought it, I was so confused that I had to choose between two colors. In the past, she used to struggle for a long time to choose between two colors, but then she simply bought them all and saved herself the trouble of picking one. One time she brought back more than ten deliveries in one day. It’s like a magic charm that makes everything you were hesitant about don’t matter,” she said. “
Because of her love of beauty, she also bought a pricey beauty instrument with amazing features, and when the concept of VR was just emerging, she also bought a pair of VR glasses for a few hundred dollars, “thinking it would be very practical”.
After the official job, Sako’s monthly salary was only 2,000 yuan, but the most she used was 4,000 to 5,000 yuan a month. The only time I felt the presence of the charm was on the monthly payment day when I realized I had used so much money. But after that day, I’m still using it, and the thrill of spending it is like a drug addiction that I can’t control. “
As a moonlighter with a monthly income of more than 3,000 yuan, Ke heard a friend mention the loan platform “Instalment” by chance, and he silently remembered it. When the desire erupted, he bought several big things through online loans: more than 4,000 yuan desktop computer, more than 6,000 yuan laptop, a few thousand yuan game console and Kindle.
“I spent what I had to spend, and I felt like I had something strong to fall back on,” recalls Arco. ” recalls Arco.
Spiritual satisfaction can be owning an expensive digital product or enjoying the thrill of being noticed on the air. On the surface, Seven doesn’t look like the kind of person who could be hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. She loves to read, and can go a year without buying any clothes, several years without changing her phone, and without any extra decorations in her house. Until a few years ago, when she was exposed to a live broadcast, she entered a world that was diametrically opposed to her real life.
When she was a student, her teachers and parents were all around her, but when she entered the workplace, it was too hard for her to get attention and recognition from others.
In the world of live streaming, the spotlight can be quantified. In the beginning, QIQI spent a hundred dollars to paint a gift for a female anchor who sang beautifully and got a “thank you brother”.
When she first watched the live broadcast, she thought those people were so vulgar that they would call her “big brother” as long as they paid for it. But one day when they were called big brother, the heart of another she felt so new and exciting here.
The other side of me is the extreme vulgarity,” she explained to herself. The other side of me is the extreme vulgarity,” she explained to herself, and quickly fell into the consumption frenzy of live streaming rewards.
At work, she thought she was a hard-working and good enough person, and her salary was rising as far as the eye could see, but it seemed so insignificant compared to the feeling of being a star in a live studio. As she became more and more dissatisfied with the compliments she received from the $100, the amount of rewards she gave to the anchors became higher and higher, hundreds, thousands, and at the most, 20,000 yuan a day.
At that moment, the people in the live broadcast room thought she was so great, and the rewarded anchors would also be very enthusiastic to interact with her on the other side of the screen. “In the live studio, a young person’s desire for success can be quickly satisfied,” said Qiqi. “Seven said.
Gradually, she even developed a kind of emotional connection in her heart with the anchor on the screen, not to say love or friendship, but felt she was needed anyway. “Sometimes I’m like a women’s philanthropist, just wanting to give so that they can all have a better life. “
But her own life was in a downward spiral. At that time, Qiqi’s monthly salary was around 6,000 to 7,000 yuan. When she couldn’t make ends meet, she began by swiping her credit card, and after owing tens of thousands of yuan, she found that she couldn’t pay it back, so she had to open a few more online lending platforms to support her loans. “The first reaction to any platform that gives me a line of credit is to be happy, never to feel that I have to control it. “
In the end, she owed more than 100,000 yuan in interest, which amounted to several thousand yuan per month, plus tens of thousands of yuan in credit cards and microfinance loans.
In fact, QIJI began to feel anxious when she owed several thousand yuan, and she realized that her life was controlled by the debt, without any freedom, and that “despair was always with me.
But after the anxiety, she couldn’t find any other solution, so she had to go back on air. “Maybe two minutes after I swiped the gift I would regret it especially, but before that moment I was really happy again. I still don’t feel like that happiness was fake. “
The weight of despair
After the pleasure, the pain of paying off debt is real.
The first thing Sakae does after her monthly paycheck is to pay off her debts. But as her expenses grew and the interest rate continued to roll over, she could never pay back the money. Then she couldn’t even make the minimum payment, so she had no choice but to open a chanting service again. One day, she received a notification from Alipay asking if she needed to pay the installment fee, and when she clicked on it, she found that she owed nearly 50,000 yuan.
The 22-year-old decided she would never borrow money from chants again. After that, she embarked on a four-year journey to repay her debts.
Every month, Xiaojiu has to spend more than 1,000 yuan of her salary to pay off her debts, and the rest can be broken up and used. After deducting 200 yuan for transportation and more than 100 yuan for communication, only 700 yuan was left for food, which amounted to more than 20 yuan per day. The unit’s cafeteria food is poor, sometimes want to go out to eat, sitting in a restaurant with a menu over and over again, and then think about how much money they can use, the appetite also lost, simply save the meal do not eat.
She never used any skin care products again, and never changed her sheets until they had holes in them, and she could wipe her mouth and hands after wiping a piece of paper.
The most embarrassing time, she broke a steamed bun in half, today eat half, tomorrow eat half, too hungry to rinse a packet of soy milk powder drink two mouths. “Hunger is really hungry, but no money is also really no money. When I first used the money, it was a pleasure to use it, but now I’m just eating my own evil consequences. I could have lived my life without it. “
From the age of 22 to 26, during the most youthful days of a girl, Xiaojiu has been paying off her debts. In retrospect, those four years had no color, every day was copy and paste, work came home from work, get a salary to pay back the money, and even seemed to have lost the memory.
Just like Xiaojiu, when he saw a text message pop up on his cell phone reminding him to pay back the money, Ake decided not to run away from reality anymore. In order to get a loan to support a loan, he opened a number of platforms, such as Moneyflower, Jingdong Baijiao, and Borrower, which together have to pay back more than 3,000 yuan per month. Although his salary has risen, he has little left after paying off his daily expenses and rent.
It was only last month that Ke did a serious calculation and found that he owed more than 50,000 yuan in total over a year. “Very confused, how could it be so much? I felt like I couldn’t pay it back completely. “He estimated that of the 50,000, more than 30,000 is the principal, more than 10,000 is the interest.
In a report released by China Merchants Bank International Securities in August this year, the annual interest rates of the Internet giants such as Ant Financial, Jingdong, Du Xiaoman, Micro Bank, between 18% – 24%, covering about 240 million borrowers, 360 Financial, Lexin, Fundian and other online lending platforms between 24% – 36%, covering about 430 million borrowers. 36% annual interest rates on P2P platforms. Like many young people who borrowed money, Ake can’t remember the interest rates on these platforms, but can only see the debts to be repaid accumulating day by day.
He used to think he was a good person, studying honestly and working hard, but now he seems to be a different person who can’t hold his head up in front of anyone, “but has to pretend he is rich in front of his friends! “. There are out-of-town friends over to play, Ake invited them to eat and drink to spend hundreds of dollars, friends wedding gifts are hundreds of dollars, no money and have to find online loans to borrow. The debt was like a mountain on his back. When he thought about it at night, he often slept for an hour and woke up for an hour.
When hopeless, Ake also thought, do you want to open another platform to fill the hole? At that time, he joined a douban group called “Debtors Alliance” and saw people who were late on their payments being collected by collection agencies. He was horrified at the prospect of “blowing up” his address book and calling his family and friends one by one to let them know. “If it had happened to me, I would have been devastated. I came from a rural area and a lot of people in my family had high expectations of me, and I wouldn’t dare let that happen to me. “
In the end, Arko chose to turn to his family. When he first called his sister, she thought he was in a pyramid scheme, and he was happy: “You think I have a low IQ. After confessing that he had taken out a loan to support his business, my sister became very angry. The phone call was later transferred to an elder, and the good child received the harshest rebuke in history. It was a much gentler way of getting a loan than being called. After writing an IOU to the family, they helped him pay off the debt.
“It’s a debt to my family, but I feel like I can breathe a big sigh of relief now. “Ake said.
One day this year, when all the platform credits had been spent and not a penny could be withdrawn, Seven Seven chose to come clean with her parents. The anxious parents scraped together more than 100,000 yuan to pay her back, and now she only has one outstanding loan from a friend.
She used to spend tens of thousands of dollars a month at the most, but now, QI has slowly managed to keep that amount to two thousand dollars a month. “When you start wanting to get better, spending $10 a day can feel like an accomplishment. “
Siege of Young People
Going back to how they got caught up in the vortex of online lending, the original source was so small, a reward, a shirt, a computer …… but after they started borrowing, the debt snowballed and never stopped. In this unconscious game of consumption, the concept of money seems to fail.
The more they sink, the deeper they get into, the more the network of the little red book seeding, live streaming with goods, medical and cosmetic surgery cases, as well as embedded in movies and TV dramas, friends, microblogging, and even the Shakespearean entrance of the fast-sliding advertisements for money lending.
After they started using online loans, they received many harassing phone calls from banks asking if they wanted to borrow money. And Jane, who just wanted to see her limit, hadn’t even gotten to the step of submitting her identity information when two harassing phone calls were already on her cell phone. “It seems like the world has endless money to spend. “
The strong marriage of consumerism and online lending has developed an extreme desire to spend money among young people who are already psychologically immature.
At the end of 2019, Nielsen produced what it claims to be the first report on the state of consumer youth debt in China. According to the report, overall credit product penetration among young people in China has reached 86.6%, and 44.5% of young people are in debt.
On the eve of Double Eleven this year, the “Debtors’ Alliance” douban group was put on Weibo, revealing even more nakedly the cruel side of this crazy consumer society.
In this “confession room” of more than 20,000 people, there are many young people who have taken out online loans for uncontrolled consumption and online gambling. Most of them have taken out loans to support themselves, with the most of them carrying debts from more than ten platforms. In the group, besides cheering each other up, they are more likely to seek solace and release stress. Because they could not pay, some received collection messages from the platform, some received threatening tweets from collection agents, and some received forged court documents from collection agencies. The texts of these people who are being called in are filled with overwhelming panic and despair about the future.
After seeing so many horrible things, Doudou decided to settle her debt. In fact, multiple moments in the past had made her think she couldn’t go on like this, but she couldn’t make up her mind as long as she wasn’t at the end of her rope. Since college, she had taken out online loans, opened eight platforms in three years of work, and owed 100,000 yuan, equivalent to nearly a year’s salary.
After making a specific repayment plan for herself, she began to cut back on her spending. She used to buy down jackets that cost thousands of dollars, but now she only buys about $100. It feels good to no longer do what she wants and to be back in control of her life. “Those online lending apps are vampires, and buying and selling are confusing words from merchants and bandwagon bloggers that don’t bring substantial happiness. “
Looking back on the price she paid in the past four years, Xiaojiu sometimes wonders if the approval process for young people who didn’t know the depth of the loan platform had been a little stricter and more tedious, whether it would have been easier for people like her, who had little self-control, to start their own lending youth. A slightly stricter lending process is likely to change the lives of a large portion of the young people in the group.
But the small loan industry people Fang Wen feels that this is an anti-Internet nature of the operation, this stage of the young group is the need to borrow money. In the past, the high threshold for bank auditing led some people to resort to illegal naked loans, which led to the path of no return. “The most important thing is that young people should maintain a temperate and moderate consumption outlook. “
However, some users believe that without legal constraints, it is empty talk to keep asking young people to be rational. This year, the regulators have been carrying out regulation of the Internet finance.
On the eve of his 26th birthday this year, Xiaojiu finally paid off all his debts. The moment I shut down my chanting and borrowing, I felt the air in the world was “lighter”. I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to afford it, but I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to afford it,” she said.
Everyone who has successfully made it to the shore wants to make a clean break with the debt-ridden person they used to be. But Seven is an exception. If she looks back at her former self, she feels that she was a “special, trustworthy” person. She made some friends she could talk to on the air, and also met and chatted with some of her favorite anchors offline. After the party, these debts did seem to leave her with something.
What Qiu Qiu hasn’t told anyone is that when her parents were scraping together money for her to pay off her debts, she saw a lot of extra money in her card, as if she couldn’t spend it all, and she ghostly drew tens of thousands of yuan from it to reward herself in the live broadcast. “It was like I didn’t even recognize myself. “Later the money she quietly paid back herself.
“Your article, my narrative, may not help anyone, most people should spend or spend, should fall or fall. “She said.
Those live software, she did not uninstall one, or will go to see every day, just no longer consume the reward. Sometimes, seeing the anchor and those who swipe gifts interact, her heart will be eager, and can imagine how happy the person swiping gifts will be at this time. But she still had a shred of sanity left and knew that if she fell into it again, there would be serious consequences. But could she really resist the urge to “relapse”? She doesn’t really have confidence in herself.
“I’ve actually had a very miserable time in the past, but I’m even kind of thankful for it. If I hadn’t had this time, I probably would have been living a normal life, but what kind of path it would have led me down, I don’t know now. “
The once hot P2P has been withdrawn from the stage of history, and there is no doubt that personal consumer loans will be standardized, but the young people who have wandered the “Debtors’ Alliance”, such as Xiaojiu and Qizhi, have learned a lesson and paid a huge price at the same time.
(All names are pseudonyms to protect privacy)
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