Recently, Jiayin Technology disclosed its 2023 financial report for the year ended December 31. As far as 2023 is concerned, the company has handed over an answer sheet to the market with both revenue and profit.
However, Beduo Finance found that in the fourth quarter of 2023, Jiayin Technology will have a situation of "increasing revenue but not increasing profits". Among them, net profit fell by three percent year-on-year. On the other hand, the increase in sales and marketing expenses reflects the continuous increase in customer acquisition costs and customer retention challenges.
Not only that, Jiayin Technology's overdue rate is also on the rise, and the consumer complaint rate of its fintech platform "You and Me Loan" remains high, and the compliance of internal service operations is debatable. In the doubts from the market and users, Jiayin Technology urgently needs to make a more long-term layout for long-term development.
First, the overdue rate has risen, and the cost of customer acquisition has risen
According to the financial report, Jiayin Technology will achieve operating income of about 5.467 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 67.1%. Looking at the profit side, the company will achieve a net profit attributable to the parent company of about 1.298 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 10.0%, and both revenue and profit have achieved double-digit growth.
However, after extending the timeline, it is not difficult to see that the net profit growth rate of Jiayin Technology has slowed down significantly. Previously, the company's net profit soared by 86.7% from 253 million yuan in 2020 to 472 million yuan in 2021, and further increased to 1.180 billion yuan in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 149.9%.
In terms of a single quarter, Jiayin Technology's operating income in the fourth quarter of 2023 was about 1.60 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 51.8%, and the net profit attributable to the parent company was 368 million yuan, a decrease of 31.1% from 534 million yuan in the same period of 2022, and even showed negative growth.
Jiayin Technology explained that in the fourth quarter of 2023, several of its core entities will officially obtain the qualification of high-tech enterprises and enjoy income tax reduction, and the income tax rate of 15% will be applied. After deducting the impact of this non-recurring item, there is no significant difference between the revenue level and net profit level of the same period in the previous quarter.
Looking at the overdue rate, Jiayin Technology said in its financial report that its M3 overdue rate in the fourth quarter of 2023 remained at the level of 0.68%, but this indicator increased from 0.52% in the third quarter. In addition, the company's M2 and M4 overdue rates were 0.90% and 1.48%, respectively, an increase of 0.24 and 0.18 percentage points from the third quarter.
In 2023, Jiayin Technology's facilitated loans and servicing expenses increased by 255.9% year-on-year to RMB2.012 billion, mainly due to the increase in the volume of facilitated loans and expenses related to financial guarantee services, while sales and marketing expenses also increased by 42.3% to RMB1.539 billion.
There are various signs that Jiayin Technology's customer acquisition cost is rising.
However, the increase in customer acquisition costs does not mean that the conversion efficiency of investment has improved. In 2023, the transaction value facilitated by Jiayin Technology will be approximately RMB88.1 billion, a year-on-year increase of 58.7%, and the transaction amount facilitated in a single quarter in the fourth quarter will be approximately RMB20.1 billion, a year-on-year increase of 6.3%.
2. Asking for "membership fees" and increasing the amount of payment is overflowing
According to public information, Jiayin Technology (the parent company of Youwo Loan) was established in June 2011 and listed on the NASDAQ in May 2019 with the stock code "JFIN". According to Bedo Finance, the company, formerly known as Jiayin Jinke, was renamed Jiayin Technology in November 2023.
Jiayin Technology said in its financial report that the company has continued to make efforts in optimizing the customer base structure and cooperating with institutions in the past year, and the proportion of repeated borrowings in the fourth quarter of 2023 will reach 72.9%, with an average borrowing amount of 9,944 yuan. By the end of 2023, the total number of financial institutions that have reached cooperation with it has reached 71, and another 36 institutions are under negotiation.
At present, Jiayin Technology mainly operates two platforms: "You and Me Loan" and "Jirong". Among them, "You and Me Loan" was originally a P2P online lending platform (online lending information intermediary platform), which mainly provides information disclosure, loan matching and other services to borrowers and borrowers, and collects user platform service fees.
According to the previous prospectus, as of the end of September 2018, the average lending amount of lenders on the Youme Loan platform reached 10,097 US dollars, or about 69,000 yuan, of which the average lending amount of repeated lenders was 12,522 US dollars, or about 86,000 yuan.
After the relevant authorities suspended the P2P online loan business, Youwo Loan is also seeking transformation, and will settle the unexpired original services in advance on October 20, 2020. Subsequently, we announced that its parent company, Jiayin Financial Technology, has completely transformed into a fintech company that provides online credit solutions (i.e., loan business).
However, it should be pointed out that although Youwo Loan is positioned as "building a bridge between investors and borrowers", many consumers have complained about the services it provides. On the Black Cat complaint platform, there are as many as 61,400 user complaints related to "You and Me Loan", involving issues such as charging high guarantee fees and violent collection.
Bedo Finance noticed that some users reported on the black cat complaint that they must open a membership when borrowing money on the You and Me Loan platform, and the membership card fee is not clear. In the case of charging multiple guarantee fees, membership fees and service fees, the platform is unable to contract and invoice users, which is suspected of unreasonable fees for no reason and infringes on the rights and interests of consumers.
Recently, after the author downloaded and logged in to the "You and Me Loan" APP, the homepage of the platform immediately appeared on the homepage of the platform with guiding pop-ups and prompts such as "Borrowing money must be checked", "Quick check of dishonesty" and "Pre-loan risk detection", and multiple pages were also displayed. After clicking to enter, they are all redirected to a page called "Risk Insights".
According to the information, the activity is provided by Tianchuang Credit Service Co., Ltd., claiming to provide "priority lending privileges", users can enjoy the increase in the approval rate, the maximum amount of loans, 24-hour AI intelligent risk monitoring, personal risk detection, priority lending and other privileges, and the service price is 39.9 yuan / month.
This kind of "paid amount" service is the fuse that triggers consumer dissatisfaction, and many consumers report that "in the name of risk monitoring, we have repeatedly collected membership fees without providing loan amounts". Coincidentally, the platform has also been complained many times before because of the default opening of the "Extreme Black Card Membership Service" worth 1,200 yuan.
In response to consumer complaints, Jiayin Technology responded that the membership rights and interests are not tied to the loan application, and users can choose not to purchase it, which will not have any impact on the loan application.
3. Who will protect the rights and interests of users?
It should be pointed out that although Jiayin Technology emphasizes the user's independent choice in the membership opening process. However, from the perspective of actual practice, the operation of Jiayin Technology's You and Me Loan APP has formed a strong enough inducement for users.
The Implementation Measures for the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Financial Consumers issued by the People's Bank of China in September 2020 clearly stipulate that when banks and payment institutions disclose important information related to the vital interests of financial consumers, such as interest rates, fees, returns and risks, they shall use methods that are conducive to the receipt and understanding of financial consumers.
In addition, according to the Notice on Financial Support for the Recovery and Expansion of Consumption issued by the State Administration of Financial Regulation, financial institutions should strictly regulate the fees charged for financial services, and shall not charge fees for products and services that do not provide substantive services to customers, do not bring substantial benefits to customers, or fail to improve substantive efficiency for customers.
In other words, the disguised collection of so-called membership fees and guarantee fees under the banner of "fast lending" is actually a violation of the law that transfers the costs that financial institutions should bear to customers, and indirectly pushes up the cost of consumer borrowing in order to improve their own profits and pursue the maximization of benefits and benefits.