"I feel like I've earned it in an instant, and I'm a little hooked on this feeling," and young people lined up to pay off their mortgages in advance: they didn't even grab a place for several days! How much less did the bank earn? The data came

National Business Daily

2024-04-24 17:07Published on the official account of Sichuan Daily Economic News

Recently, some small and medium-sized banks have set off another "wave of interest rate cuts" on deposits. Compared with loan interest expenses, the cost performance of spare money for financial management has dropped significantly, so the topic of prepayment has become hot again.

However, prepaying your mortgage is not something you can do if you want to. Many banks have made online appointments for early mortgage repayment, and the repayment needs to wait for more than 1 month.

Interest rates have fallen, but prepayment customers are still continuing

According to the Qianjiang Evening News, Xiao Tang, a post-90s new Hangzhou native, was saving money to repay the mortgage in advance, "After paying it back, I found that the interest was much less, and I instantly felt that I had earned it, and then I was a little hooked on this feeling." He said that many friends around him also chose to repay their loans early.

Some young people are more willing to repay their loans early, but most banks are not able to repay them on the same day.

Xiao Fan, who applied for a commercial loan at a rural commercial bank, said, "I applied last month, and the account manager said that I would wait until after June, and I wanted to expedite but the reply I got was: I am not waiting alone, I have to come according to the appointment time, if there is no quota, it will take longer." "At present, early repayment can only be done offline, and the waiting time has become longer recently.

"I grabbed it for several days, but I didn't get to get the place that was released. Xiaoqian, a new Hangzhou person, said that she couldn't grab the number on the mobile banking app of a state-owned bank recently, and until June 15, the previous appointments were over. "According to the contract, the repayment of the loan is more than 1 year, and then there is no penalty for early repayment, so many owners in our community choose to queue up to repay. ”

Xiao Shen, who made an appointment to repay the loan at another state-owned bank, said that although the bank has no limit on the number of appointments on the mobile banking app, it is difficult to grab them. "Generally, you have to wait for two or three months, and you have to pay liquidated damages at the same time as the interest is overpaid. ”

According to Wuxi Daily, Ms. Li, a local citizen, bought a house in Wuxi Binhu District in March last year and took out a loan for 30 years at the then interest rate of 3.8%, and the interest rate on the existing mortgage dropped to 3.7% in January this year. After much discussion with her family, Ms. Li decided to apply for early repayment. It turned out that on the eve of the Spring Festival, Ms. Li and her husband got a lot of year-end bonuses, plus the previous five-year fixed deposit and some financial management maturity, the money on hand has been fully able to repay the mortgage. More importantly, at present, the interest rate on fixed deposits has been falling again and again, and the interest rate on three-year fixed deposits of state-owned commercial banks has fallen below 2.5 percent. Similarly, the yield of wealth management has begun to decline, sometimes only slightly higher than the current account, and even losses, so it is more appropriate to use the money on hand for prepayment.

A customer manager at the Binhu branch of a state-owned commercial bank in Wuxi said: "The first quarter of each year is the peak period for prepayment, and this year is no exception, with an increase of 20% compared with usual. ”

The personal loan manager of a branch of a joint-stock commercial bank in Wuxi also said that in March this year, the number of customers who asked him to apply for early repayment was the usual number of customers for two months. He has a customer who runs a small business, Mr. Lin, who made a lot of money last year, and he can't find a suitable investment project this year, so he also plans to pay off the mortgage early. However, he reminded the public that due to the large number of people who repay the loan in advance, they need to apply for an appointment offline because they cannot repay the loan online, and the time is generally about 1 month, and there are also restrictions in terms of the amount, and the specific repayment amount needs to be consulted by the repayer individually.

According to a report by Wuxi Daily, the manager of a personal loan at a branch of a joint-stock commercial bank in Wuxi said that in recent years, the state and financial regulatory departments have repeatedly asked banks to take practical measures to help individuals solve their difficulties and reduce the burden of personal consumption credit. However, for banks, housing loans are high-quality assets that can provide banks with stable cash flow income, and in the face of the prepayment wave, the prepayment limit and appointment queue phenomenon of banks are not intentional obstacles set by banks.

The personal loan manager said that if the number of applicants for prepayment increases in a short period of time, it is necessary to give banks a certain amount of time to actively look for the credit needs of the real economy, and reuse the funds returned in advance as soon as possible. Therefore, banks should classify the reasons for customers to repay their mortgages in advance, guide customers to repay loans rationally in a timely manner, and start from their own actual conditions instead of blindly following them.

Don't fall into the trap of switching business loans

A number of media reports mentioned that along with the "early repayment" boom, there have also been irregularities such as exchanging business loans for housing loans.

According to the Qianjiang Evening News, Mr. Zou, a citizen of Hangzhou, received a sales call from a loan intermediary. "He said that he could take out a loan at a very low price, charge me a little handling fee, and the money could be repaid to the mortgage. Mr. Zou said that many neighbors had also received such a pitch, and most of them chose to refuse.

According to the Southern Metropolis Daily, a financial market analyst pointed out that "prepayment is essentially a kind of financial thinking, and the starting point is how to reduce one's leverage cost through debt swap." For example, new housing loans with low interest rates, or replacement of stock loans with high interest rates with business loans and consumer loans. "In this wave of prepayment like last year, some people may have switched to business loans, and the relevant interest rate can now be as low as 3 points. From the perspective of big data, compared with the balance of personal housing loans of large state-owned banks decreased by more than 500 billion yuan, the balance of household operating loans increased by 17.2% year-on-year last year.

However, relevant industry insiders also reminded that "some intermediaries will tell you that the interest rate can be as low as less than 3 points, but once it is found that there is no real operation in the examination and approval, it will be treated as a loan, and at the same time, personal credit will also be affected, affecting the future credit business." ”

The Wuxi Daily report also reminded that it is necessary to be vigilant against some unscrupulous intermediaries who recommend housing loans to low-interest rate business loans. The other party often induces citizens to use intermediary bridge funds to settle housing loans, and then go to the bank to apply for business loans to repay the bridge funds. This kind of operation of replacing housing loans with business loans hides risks such as default and illegal risks, high fee traps, personal credit reporting, capital chain breakage, and infringement of information security. Business loans and housing loans are very different in terms of loan conditions, interest, use of funds, term, repayment method, etc. For example, if the term of the operating loan is short, the repayment requirements are also very different, and most of the principal needs to be repaid in a lump sum, if the borrower does not have a stable source of funds, the loan cannot be repaid in time after the loan expires, which may cause the risk of capital chain breakage.

How big is the impact of prepayment on banks?

Recently, the six major state-owned banks have successively announced their 2023 results, among which the disclosure of "prepayment of loans" has become a hot topic.

Wind data shows that the total balance of mortgage loans of the six major state-owned banks is about 26.43 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of about 516.6 billion yuan. In their annual reports, many banks attributed the decline in personal housing loan balances to the adjustment of the real estate market and the increase in the scale of prepayment.

It should be noted that the mortgage loans of the six major state-owned banks account for about 70% of all banks.

Specifically, CCB is still the largest bank in terms of personal housing loans, with a decrease of more than 90 billion yuan compared with 2022. However, CCB is not the largest decline among state-owned banks, and the scale of personal housing loans of ABC will drop by more than 170 billion yuan in 2023. Among the six major state-owned banks, only the Postal Savings Bank has increased the scale of personal housing loans.

At the beginning of April this year, when answering questions from reporters at the results conference, Li Yun, vice president of China Construction Bank, said that in the first three months of this year, the scale of prepayment of housing loans of China Construction Bank decreased compared with the fourth quarter of last year. ”

There are also bank executives who have expressed a cautious attitude. On March 29, Lin Yunshan, vice president of Minsheng Bank, said at the 2023 results conference that the scale of mortgage prepayment will increase in 2023, and "the trend is still there since the beginning of this year". Lin Yunshan said frankly that we expect that the prepayment and repricing of mortgages in 2024 will affect the income of 1.8 billion yuan in that year.

Editor|Lu Xiangyong, Du Hengfeng

Proofreading|Duan Lian

Cover image source: Visual China VCG111478367792

The daily economic news is synthesized from Qianjiang Evening News, Wuxi Daily, Jiemian News, and Southern Metropolis Daily

National Business Daily