Ten years after its establishment, Himalaya, which has broken into the capital market, has new news. On May 14, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily noticed that the official website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission recently disclosed the requirements for supplementary materials for overseas issuance and listing, and the corresponding enterprises should submit supplementary materials for listing to the regulatory authorities, among which Himalaya was required to explain the loan business and other major issues.
The Beijing Business Daily reporter found that the loan diversion business of the Himalaya App is nested with multiple participants, and finally leads users to a third party that charges high service fees. Not only is the annualized interest rate far from the information shown earlier, but the relevant staff also proposed to charge a 15% service fee and a 399 yuan production cost.
Earlier, Himalaya submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on April 12, and since then, it has also hastily taken off the self-operated loan product "Listen to Xiaobei Borrow Money", which has only been in operation for one month. Some analysts pointed out that although finance is not the main business of Himalaya, due to the gradual tightening of supervision of financial business in recent years, and the relevant supervision of all links from pre-loan to post-loan has also continued to be refined, there is a possibility of causing obstacles to Himalaya's listing.
Credit diversion is directed to illegal third parties
Himalaya's loan business is full of risks for users.
On May 14, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily found that the Himalaya App has a "wallet" business section, in which users can apply for loans through the "borrow money" service entrance. In the "Loan" service, the word "advertisement" is indicated, and "high amount and low interest" and "fastest loan in 3 minutes" are mentioned.
After clicking "Borrow money", you can see that the Himalaya App is currently providing diversion services for 5 platforms, including Du Xiaoman, 360 IOU, Rong 360, Haohui Loan, and Borrow Money. Judging from the page information, the relevant platforms mostly display the words "minimum annual interest rate of 7%" and "annualized interest rate of 7.2%", and after entering the customer acquisition page filled in the information, you can further see the annualized interest rate range, operating entity and other information.
It is worth mentioning that according to the "borrowing money" loan process, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily conducted further measurements as a borrower. After filling in your personal information, the page prompts you to download the Borrow Money App to activate the limit and obtain a loan. In the personal information authorization section, the page shows that a company called Hunan Hongxin Xinfu Information Service Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hunan Hongxin") is approaching the credit business.
After the information was submitted, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily soon received a call from a customer service staff who claimed to be "borrowing money", and the other party proposed that there was no need to download the borrowing money App, but that they could first go to a public account called "second enjoyment" for line credit, and the loan interest rate would fluctuate around 6%-9%. According to the "Second Enjoyment" page, the official account certification entity is Hainan Jinshiyuan Microfinance Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hainan Jinshiyuan Microloan").
According to the above-mentioned customer service staff guidelines, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily clicked "Get Quota" in the official account and entered the chat business with Hunan Renxin Business Service Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hunan Renxin") Enterprise WeChat, and the other party was named "Manager Wu, the commissioner of the next paragraph".
However, the corresponding line credit process is not authorized to inquire about credit information, etc., but through customer service to inquire whether there is overdue, whether there are frequent applications for online loans, etc., and finally come to the conclusion that "the loan conditions are met". During this period, "Manager Wu" also proposed to use Huabei online cashing out and other methods to obtain loans.
For the specific loan interest rate and lending institutions, "Manager Wu" was vague, only replied with words such as "the lowest daily interest rate is 0.03 to 0.06" and "will match the most suitable lending institution", and then it was proposed that the full amount must be withdrawn after the amount is issued, and 15% of the service fee and 399 yuan will be charged. Based on a loan of 10,000 yuan, the overall loan cost of the user fluctuates around 30%-40%, far exceeding the previous commitment of 6%-9%.
When asked how the other party obtained the information of the reporter of Beijing Business Daily, the other party repeatedly said that it was a "borrowing money" cooperation platform. Regarding the relationship between Hunan Renxin and Hainan Jinshiyuan Small Loan, the other party said that it was not clear.
The reporter of Beijing Business Daily further verified the manual customer service of the Borrowing Qianbei App, and the manual customer service of the platform pointed out that the order of the Beijing Business Daily reporter on the borrowing Qianbei platform was accepted by the account manager of Hunan Hongxin, and the customer service of borrowing Qianbei would not call the user, and the "second enjoyment" was not a partner, and the information of Hunan Renxin was also inconsistent with the order information. Hainan Jinshiyuan Small Loan and Hunan Renxin did not disclose effective contact information.
And this also means that the loan applied for by a reporter from Beijing Business Daily in the Himalaya App has been invisibly directed to an illegal third party, and the cost of the loan has also been sharply pushed up. Exactly where personal information was leaked has also become an unsolved mystery.
Regarding how to select cooperative institutions for the diversion business, what role the company plays in user qualification review and post-loan management, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily interviewed Himalaya, but as of press time, no reply has been received from the company.
Su Xiaorui, a senior researcher at Suxi Zhiyan, pointed out that from the perspective of business model, diversion for loan platforms is part of the loan business, and no financial license is required to carry out corresponding services, but the platform side also needs to fulfill its audit obligations. Himalaya's move violated relevant industry regulations, whether it was illegal loans or information leakage.
"The 'nested layers' of the loan process after diversion is not conducive to protecting the right to know of financial consumers, and it is also easy to mislead consumers. It will cause users to suffer a heavier financial burden, and at the same time, it will also disrupt the normal order of the Internet loan market. Su Xiaorui added.
Lack of license becomes a "hard injury"
In addition to diversion of loan products, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily noticed that the Himalaya "wallet" section has also set up a "financial service", "credit card courtesy" and "borrowing" service entrance, "financial services" and "credit card gifts" are mainly cooperated with brokerages and banks, and users can obtain Himalaya members by applying for credit cards and other ways.
At the same time, users can recharge the virtual assets "Xidian" and "Xizui" provided by the platform on this platform, which are used to support paid content and live broadcast rewards, respectively. If the income is generated on the platform, the user can also view the income and expenditure details on the corresponding page and withdraw the money.
In the previously disclosed prospectus, Himalaya pointed out that the company's revenue is mainly generated through subscriptions, advertising, live streaming and other innovative products and services, of which membership subscriptions and paid on-demand listening services account for more than half of the company's total revenue. In the introduction of related businesses and revenue segments, Himalaya did not disclose the situation of financial businesses such as loans.
Unlike other Internet platforms that have a large layout in the financial field, Ximalaya still does not hold a financial business license, which also forms an important shackle to the company's financial business expansion.
Among them, in terms of payment business, Ximalaya pointed out in the risk warning section of the prospectus that the company faces payment processing risks, mainly worried about major changes in the current payment methods provided by the company or an increase in processing fees, which will have an adverse impact on brand management.
Under various factors, Himalaya's self-operated business is also testing the market reaction. In March 2024, Himalaya launched its self-operated loan product "Listen to Xiaobei Borrow Money", which shows that services are provided by cooperative licensed financial institutions. Subsequently, the product was widely questioned in terms of user information authorization and high interest rates, and Ximalaya also hastily removed the business after submitting the prospectus.
What are the main factors for the delisting of self-operated loans? What is the connection with the listing of the company? Is there a follow-up plan for "listening to Xiaobei borrowing money"? A reporter from Beijing Business Daily interviewed Himalaya, but as of press time, no reply has been received from the company.
Pan Helin, a well-known economist, said bluntly that finance is one of the important channels for the realization of institutional flows, but in such fields that require qualifications to conduct business, practitioners should be cautious enough and not come and go as soon as they want. In particular, finance itself has a high barrier to entry. Himalaya lacks relevant qualifications and licenses, and the current difficulty in obtaining licenses is high, which is also a "hard injury", and the company's business development is facing more challenges.
Wang Pengbo, chief analyst of Broadcom Consulting, said that at present, usury, privacy protection and other content are the key tasks of regulatory governance of financial business, and it is not difficult to explain why Himalaya's self-operated products have been questioned after they are launched.
Asked to supplement the listing materials
The diversion business has hidden risks, and the self-operated loan business has caused a storm after a short period of launch, and the financial business that Himalaya has "hidden" in the prospectus has received regulatory attention. According to the requirements of the CSRC for the filing of supplementary materials for overseas issuance and listing, Ximalaya should explain the loan assistance business provided to individual customers.
Specifically, the CSRC requires Himalaya to supplement the following information: the specific form of loan assistance business; Whether it involves the investment of self-raised funds as a source of loan funds, whether it is a financial or quasi-financial activity, and whether it has obtained the necessary business qualifications; Whether it involves credit reporting business, and explain whether the business development complies with the provisions of the Interim Measures for the Business Activities of Online Lending Intermediaries, whether it has been filed and registered in accordance with Article 5 of the Measures and the corresponding telecommunications business license has been obtained, and whether there are any prohibitive circumstances under Article 10 of the Measures.
At the same time, Himalaya should also explain whether the relevant financial business operation involves post-loan collection services, and whether there is any non-compliant collection method; the scale of the financial services business in each year during the reporting period, the names of the top five customers and the proportion of revenue from such customers, the scale of the issuer's self-raised funds and the source of funds, and the proportion of fees charged by the issuer to financial institutions in the loan interest; During the reporting period, whether the financial services business was subject to regulatory measures or penalties imposed by the competent authorities, whether there were abnormal business events such as major debt repayment risks, and whether there were substantial obstacles to the overseas issuance and listing.
In the relevant supplementary materials, the CSRC also mentioned that Himalaya operates a live broadcast business, involving the sale of virtual gifts, rewards and other activities, and requires an explanation of whether the relevant business involves virtual asset trading, as well as the proportion of virtual asset income and compliance.
A month ago, Himalaya submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on April 12, which is also the company's fourth attack on the capital market in the past three years. According to the content disclosed in the prospectus, CIC Consulting data shows that in terms of total mobile listening time and total online audio revenue in 2023, Ximalaya is the largest online audio platform in China. In 2023, the average number of monthly active users of Himalaya will reach 303 million.
The number of monthly active users of more than 300 million people has also created a traffic advantage that cannot be ignored for Himalaya's financial business. Su Xiaorui pointed out that as far as the development of financial business at this stage is concerned, Himalaya, like most Internet platforms, tries to enter the financial business by virtue of its traffic advantage, but from what it does, it is obvious that it does not have a thorough understanding of various regulatory systems in the financial field.
In Su Xiaorui's view, Himalaya was required to supplement the corresponding listing materials, reflecting the regulator's high attention to the loan business and Himalaya's financial business, although finance is not Himalaya's main business, but due to the gradual tightening of the supervision of financial business in recent years, the relevant supervision from pre-loan to post-loan has also continued to be refined, there is a possibility of causing obstacles to Himalaya's listing.
"In the future, Himalaya needs to improve compliance in the field of financial lending. If the qualification is lacking, you can also consider divesting this part of the non-main business to ensure the smooth listing of the company and avoid small losses. Su Xiaorui added.
Wang Pengbo also pointed out that the requirement for Himalaya to submit supplementary materials is a manifestation of the normal exercise of supervision rights by the regulators, and it is also responsible for the majority of shareholders in the secondary market. With the current situation of strong supervision in the financial market, non-compliant or still in the gray area of financial business may have an immeasurable impact on listed institutions, and such effects must be clearly explained in order to eliminate such impacts. At the same time, enterprises should think about the relationship between finance and their main business in advance, and develop financial business under the premise of compliance.
Regarding the current progress of the submission of supplementary materials, whether the content of the reply will be disclosed to the public in the future, and the impact of the supplementary materials on the listing, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily interviewed Himalaya, but did not receive a reply from the company as of press time.
Source: Beijing Business Daily
Reporter: Liao Meng
Process edit: u031