Douyin prohibits loan intermediaries from advertising, how deep is the routine of loan intermediaries?

Recently, the news that Douyin has banned loan intermediaries from advertising has been hotly discussed, and the most affected are loan intermediary companies.

On May 8, the Douyin Massive Advertising Rules Center issued a rule change to the "Prohibition of Access to the Loan Intermediary Industry", which clearly suspended the information flow business of the loan intermediary industry. Douyin pointed out that in the governance, it was found that there are various risks of violations of laws and regulations in the loan intermediary industry, such as reselling customer capital, non-standard store operation, and providing false services. In order to maintain the ecological health of the platform and protect the rights and interests of users, the platform temporarily restricts the launch of the industry.

After the adjustment, Douyin will prohibit customers from promoting intermediary services involving loan consultation, agency and other intermediary services that divert traffic to offline stores, and the implementation time will be May 15.

In recent years, the offline customer acquisition of mutual finance platforms has been limited, and they have flocked to Douyin, Kuaishou and other leading short video platforms. I often swipe information flow advertisements on short video platforms, such as "you can borrow with an ID card", "flexible borrowing", "arrive in the account in 2 hours at the earliest", "provident fund loan", etc.

IN THE INVESTIGATION, WEMONEY'S RESEARCH LABORATORY ALSO FOUND THAT MANY OF THESE LOAN COMPANIES ARE ON THE EDGE OF COMPLIANCE RED LINES, SUCH AS THE "RECOMMENDATION AND MATCHING OF COOPERATIVE FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS FOR CONSUMERS" IN THEIR AGREEMENTS, WHICH ACTUALLY TRANSFER CONSUMER LOAN INFORMATION TO OFFLINE LOAN INTERMEDIARIES.

A person close to the industry said that Douyin's "one-size-fits-all" approach did cause a "big earthquake" within the industry, and Douyin's move was to strengthen the platform's governance and protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.

1. The transformation of loan intermediaries from telemarketing to online sales

In recent years, WeChat Moments and short video information flow advertisements have gradually become the main customer acquisition positions for small loan companies and online loan platforms, and the effect of advertising is self-evident. However, in recent years, chaos has emerged in a variety of loan advertisements.

This is essentially a change in the way loan intermediaries acquire customers from telemarketing to online sales.

Loan intermediaries have existed for a long time, especially in the past decade, and loan intermediaries have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain. In recent years, the traditional customer acquisition methods of loan intermediaries, such as telemarketing, direct sales and store marketing, have become less and less efficient.

For the sake of protecting consumer privacy and controlling telecommunication fraud, the state has promulgated a series of laws and regulations represented by the Personal Information Protection Law, and the purchase and sale of personal information has been suspected of being a crime. This has further intensified the blow to the telemarketing market.

Especially with the rise of online sales, the telemarketing market has been cracked down and customer acquisition has been restricted, and some intermediary companies are considering transforming into Internet drainage, including WeChat and short video platforms.

In fact, it is not that the loan platform is unaware that traditional telemarketing is going downhill, but for small and medium-sized enterprises, the transformation is indeed not so easy. A practitioner in the small loan industry said that the main way of online sales is advertising and new media, advertising is a new field for most loan companies, and it takes money to set up a delivery team, and it is a large expense to produce advertisements, place advertisements and optimize advertisements; The loan industry is also facing the risk of account closure and current restriction as a new media customer acquisition. There are also some lenders who are very determined to transform and take action quickly, but the results are not satisfactory.

Advertising on short video platforms, the customer leads, customer quality and order efficiency obtained from advertising will be much higher than that of telemarketing, but how to control the input-output ratio ROI of advertising is really a big science.

At present, the main platforms for new media to acquire customers in the industry are Douyin, Channels, WeChat, Baidu, etc. A SENIOR PRACTITIONER TOLD THE WEMONEY RESEARCH OFFICE THAT DOUYIN'S TRAFFIC CONVERSION RATE IS UNBEATABLE, FOLLOWED BY TENCENT'S ECOLOGY, AND BAIDU SEARCH IS THE WEAKEST. If you want to obtain customer resources on these platforms, the comprehensive ability requirements for salespeople are very high, especially on short video platforms, they must not only be able to shoot and write, but also know how to circumvent the platform's supervision of finance-related topics and obtain normal exposure.

At present, it seems that the most affected is not only intermediaries, but also teams specializing in information flow, the main business of such companies is to divert and sell user information, and provide customers for offline intermediaries in various regions.

A person from a leading loan platform said that the Internet platform can get more regional customers by doing information flow, and for enterprises that do loans, the customers are accurate, new, and regional, and the marketing effect is not bad. Loan companies generally entrust Douyin to publish loan videos on behalf of operating companies, insert forms into the videos, and interested loan customers fill in the form (name, asset status, and how much loan they need), and then contact by the intermediary phone, which is more accurate and saves a lot of time.

He also revealed that a number of leading loan intermediaries have switched to Kuaishou, but according to these companies, the conversion rate is not as expected.

2. Savagely grown loan intermediaries

What are the routines of loan intermediaries?

The routine of general loan intermediaries is to sell loans in the name of "XX Bank" and "XX Loan Center", and after guiding users to meet offline, they take advantage of the borrower's eagerness to achieve results and deceive the trust of users, claiming that users meet the requirements of high-amount and low-interest loans and can easily get loans, and then find various reasons to collect deposits, production costs, and household fees......

In addition, some loan intermediaries package housing loan customers as business loan customers, and apply for operating loans with lower interest rates in banks to replace existing housing loans with higher interest rates, so as to earn illegal income such as handling fees, bridge tolls, and information fees. Or use "AB loans" and other routines to harm the innocent. The so-called AB loan means that if A has a problem with his credit investigation and cannot obtain a loan, the bad intermediary will ask him to provide a guarantor, ask A to make an appointment with a relative or friend B, and nominally let B guarantee A, but in the actual operation process, what is submitted is B's identity information and information, A successfully gets the funds, and the real borrower is B.

Previously, according to a number of media reports, among the loan advertisements released on these platforms, there are many loan intermediaries who publish advertisements in the name of banks, resell user information to loan intermediaries layer by layer, and even some online loan fraud APPs are hidden in them.

IN THE INVESTIGATION, WEMONEY'S RESEARCH LABORATORY ALSO FOUND THAT MANY OF THESE LOAN COMPANIES ARE ON THE EDGE OF COMPLIANCE RED LINES, SUCH AS THE "RECOMMENDATION AND MATCHING OF COOPERATIVE FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS FOR CONSUMERS" IN THEIR AGREEMENTS, WHICH ACTUALLY TRANSFER CONSUMER LOAN INFORMATION TO OFFLINE LOAN INTERMEDIARIES. Finally, a high fee of 10%-15% will be charged to the user.

In fact, local regulators have been increasing their efforts to rectify loan intermediaries.

In 2023, the Shanghai Municipal Administration for Market Regulation conducted an inventory of the black chain of loan intermediaries, and continued to carry out two rounds of "chain clearance" operations across the city, dispatching more than 450 law enforcement officers, and found that 48 loan intermediaries were involved in illegally collecting and using consumers' personal information and fraudulently using banks to carry out loan business.

At the beginning of 2024, a loan intermediary in Shanghai, the Shanghai Administration for Market Regulation, was fined 300,000 yuan. The reason for this is that it conducts SMS marketing in the name of a formal bank.

Recently, a number of offline loan intermediaries focusing on telemarketing have been investigated in Chengdu, more than 70 suspects have been arrested, and criminal measures have been taken against the main culprits.

This year, loan intermediaries are facing multiple pressures and challenges, and need to adapt to the situation of stricter regulation and intensified market competition.

A LEADING INFORMATION FLOW PRACTITIONER TOLD THE WEMONEY RESEARCH OFFICE THAT THE ADJUSTMENT OF DOUYIN HAS A GREAT IMPACT ON THEM, AND THE TRAFFIC OF NO PLATFORM CAN BE COMPARED WITH DOUYIN. He believes that for this industry, many companies do not pay attention to process compliance, and no one bothers to adjust business processes. Douyin's ban on advertisements in the lending industry may make these platforms pay attention to compliance issues, and it is also a transformative opportunity for the industry to develop positively. (Wenxin/Text)