Reporter He Xiangjun and intern reporter Feng Fengming reported
For closed-end wealth management products established by Bank of Ganzhou after today (April 19), the wealth management transfer service will be suspended. This is the latest adjustment to the wealth management product transfer service made by the Announcement on Suspending the Transfer Service of Wealth Management Products issued by the Bank of Ganzhou on April 15.
The so-called closed-end wealth management products refer to products with a certain time lock-up period and a fixed redemption date, and the liquidity is poor. Therefore, some banks have launched wealth management product transfer services, which allow users to transfer wealth management products to third parties and provide them with related transfer services to improve product flexibility.
For the reason for the suspension of transfer, Ganzhou Bank said that it was "system upgrading and transformation", but the reporter noted that recently Minsheng Bank, Guangfa Bank, Pudong Development Bank and other banks have stopped the wealth management transfer business. Among them, the announcement of China Minsheng Bank explained that it is "in accordance with the requirements of the new asset management regulations" that it needs to continuously reduce the scale of expected income products, so it stops the transfer of expected income wealth management products.
According to industry insiders, this is in response to the regulatory window guidance requirements. At present, there are still more than 7 months to go before the end of the transition period of the new asset management regulations, and the transformation of the comprehensive net worth of wealth management products is the general trend. In this context, due to risks such as large fluctuations in yields and difficulty in assessing user appropriateness, there are certain hidden dangers in the transfer of wealth management products. Therefore, the removal of this business by banks also meets the requirements of protecting the rights and interests of financial consumers.
The wealth management transfer business was withdrawn from a number of banks
Following the decline of wealth management transfer business by joint-stock banks, a city commercial bank has also made adjustments to such business recently.
On April 15, the official website of The Bank of Ganzhou announced that due to the upgrading and transformation of the system, the bank will make the following adjustments to the wealth management product transfer service: Closed-end wealth management products established after April 19, 2021 will suspend the wealth management product transfer service. Closed-end wealth management products established before April 19, 2021 will be suspended from 17:00 on June 24, 2021, and orders submitted before 17:00 on June 24, 2021 and unsuccessfully transferred will be automatically withdrawn at 17:00 on June 30, 2021.
Bank of Ganzhou did not announce the resumption time of the transfer service, saying only that it would "notify you separately." In the eyes of the outside world, this means that Ganzhou Bank has also joined the team to stop the transfer of wealth management.
As we all know, bank wealth management products with relatively high and stable returns are relatively weak in terms of liquidity. In view of such situations, since 2016, some banks have begun to launch wealth management product transfer services to solve liquidity problems. And many products with higher expected returns have a long closed period and are not attractive enough to users.
The reporter combed and found that the service was first mainly carried out in national joint-stock banks and some city commercial banks. In 2019, with the rise of smart deposits, some private banks' Internet deposit products have also launched such services, such as the "Zhongli Deposit" launched by Zhongbang Bank, the underlying assets are 3-year, 5-year bank deposits, 10,000 yuan to buy, the annual interest rate is as high as 4.2%-4.8%, the transfer is calculated according to the established annual interest rate, and the principal and interest are received in real time after the transfer is successful. Internet wealth management platforms such as JD Finance have also launched a "transfer platform", where users can transfer their own after purchasing products that support transfer, and banks provide services such as fund clearing and order change. The bank wealth management transfer business is thus well known to the majority of investors.
For the types of negotiable wealth management products, the scope of regulations varies from bank to bank. Some banks support the transfer of large certificates of deposit, some banks support the transfer of all expected income wealth management products, and some banks also support the transfer of net worth wealth management products. The transfer price is usually negotiated by the buyer and the seller, and the common transfer methods are a fixed price model, an auction mode and an agreement mode.
In January this year, the new regulations on Internet deposits of commercial banks "boots" landed, making it clear that "commercial banks shall not carry out fixed deposits and fixed-income two-penny deposit business through non-self-operated network platforms". With the collective removal of bank deposit products on the Internet platform, the "transfer platform" link on JD Finance remains, but the transaction status and transferable products are blank. It can also be understood that JD Finance has removed the transfer business of wealth management products. The reporter saw on the official APP of Zhongbang Bank that at present, in the column of "Zhongli Deposit", the two products in the issuance are shown to be sold out, and the "transaction" column is also blank.
Also in early January, Minsheng Bank announced that it would stop the transfer of expected yield products from January 4, 2021. Subsequently, in March, Spousal Development Bank said that it would stop the transfer of wealth management products from March 23, and Guangfa Bank announced that it would stop the transfer of pending orders for non-principal protected wealth management products and structured deposits from March 26. Previously, China Merchants Bank, Industrial Bank and China CITIC Bank have also announced the suspension of wealth management product transfer services, and the related business has not yet resumed.
Coupled with the addition of the Bank of Ganzhou today, the joint-stock banks, urban commercial banks and private banks that have previously tried to carry out this business have all been removed from the shelves. The exit signal of bank wealth management transfer business is obvious.
The advent of the new financial rules is an important influencing factor
The industry generally believes that the wealth management transfer business facilitates customers to realize financial management at low cost and efficiently, meets the liquidity management needs of customers, and is conducive to improving customer stickiness. In particular, since last year, the yield of bank wealth management has generally declined, and the yield of some wealth management products in transfer at this time is even higher than that of newly issued products, so it is sought after by some users who have a "leak picking" mentality. In this context, why have banks called off this business?
Some banks only disclosed in the announcement that it was a "system upgrade", such as Ganzhou Bank, China Merchants Bank, Industrial Bank and so on. The announcement on stopping the transfer of wealth management products issued by Shanghai Pudong Development Bank recently also said that "due to system upgrading and transformation", the transfer of wealth management products will be stopped from March 23, 2021, and the original wealth management transfer related portal interface of the bank's electronic channels (App, online banking) will be removed from the shelves at the same time.
The reporter noted that the announcement of Minsheng Bank explained that "according to the requirements of the new asset management regulations", it is necessary to continuously reduce the scale of expected income products, so the transfer business of expected income wealth management products is stopped. A number of industry insiders also mentioned this influencing factor, according to industry insiders, the regulator has carried out window guidance requirements for commercial banks in this regard.
Industry insiders said that the current wealth management transfer business is still a regulatory ambiguity, which is prone to various risks. It mainly includes two major aspects: product aspects and operational risks. Among them, in terms of products, it can be seen that most of the transfers in the transfer platform are "old products" such as expected income products, which do not conform to the direction of bank asset management transformation, and will withdraw from the market with the advent period of the transition period of the new asset management regulations.
Under the new asset management regulations, new products that are gradually transforming to the direction of net worth have real-time fluctuations in returns. If the transfer of wealth management products is liberalized, the transfer price may be unfair due to untimely valuation, thus harming the rights and interests of financial consumers.
On the other hand, there is the issue of investor suitability in practice. At present, most of the bank's "wealth management product transfer" business is carried out online, and customers can initiate wealth management product transfer and independent transactions in the mobile banking APP and online banking. This makes it more difficult for the wealth management transfer platform to assess the appropriateness of investors in the "matchmaking". If some users blindly only look at the product benefits and terms, ignore the risk level and product type of the product, so as to purchase high-risk products that exceed their own affordability, the subsequent problems such as product complaints and consumer disputes are endless.
So, for customers who have purchased long-term wealth management products, if they cannot transfer the money when they are urgently needed in the future, how to solve the liquidity problem? In this regard, the account manager of a local bank told reporters that it is possible to refer to the supporting products of large certificates of deposit - pledge loans. "For example, our bank's 5-year large-denomination certificate of deposit product has an annualized interest rate of 4.26%, and can be matched with a pledge loan with an annual interest rate of 4.2%." If the user has temporary capital needs, he can apply for a certificate of deposit pledge loan, which not only avoids interest losses caused by early withdrawal, but also obtains temporary funds. According to reports, such products have been relatively mature in large and medium-sized banks, and recently Internet banks have also begun to carry out certificate of deposit pledge loan business.
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