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Author | Wu Xiaoling
"Data is a very important factor of production in the new era", Wu Xiaoling, former vice president of the People's Bank of China, believes, "after the Internet intervenes in financial business, what changes have been brought to our financial system, what benefits have been brought, and how should we look at it... All require systematic research and answers. Recently, Wu Xiaoling's new book "New Era of Platform Finance" attempts to answer the above questions. "Red Weekly" excerpted the epilogue of this book, inviting everyone to stand in the overall perspective and look at the current situation and future trends of platform finance.
The following is an excerpt from the afterword (with abridgements):
Many years ago, when Internet finance was hot, I noticed that third-party payments, online small loans and various money market funds represented by The Balance Treasure with the help of the Internet to expand the industry have facilitated the payment and small loans of the people, provided change management and relatively stable income at the same time, but also brought an impact on the deposit, wealth management, sales and other businesses of traditional financial institutions such as banks. With the significant increase in volume, its influence on financial markets is also increasing. Since then, with the exposure of p2p risks, there have been more and more doubts about Internet finance in society, and the title of Internet finance has been replaced by financial technology to reflect the concept that financial business must be licensed.
In November 2020, after ant group suspended listing and central bank officials interviewed the management of ant group, academic and industry experts expressed their views, and the public also spoke from multiple angles, which pushed the issue of platform companies' intervention in finance to the cusp of the storm. Because of its huge size, Ant Group has brought a lot of impact to the financial market, and the regulatory authorities have taken relevant preventive measures in a timely manner to resolve these shocks one by one.
The storm has gradually passed, but after the Internet platform intervened in the financial business, what changes have been brought to our financial system, what are the benefits, how we should look at it, how to formulate our regulatory principles, how to identify the regulatory priorities and formulate corresponding regulatory measures, is a question that needs systematic research and answers.
Therefore, the China Wealth Management 50 Forum and tsinghua university Wudaokou School of Finance together to carry out relevant research, set up a "platform financial technology company supervision research" project, based on this topic, there is a "platform finance new era" book. The reason why it is called "platform finance" is to clarify the scope of our research. Fintech is a broad concept that includes the use of information technology by traditional financial institutions and the involvement of information technology companies in financial business. At present, there is more social controversy about the impact of large technology platform enterprises involved in certain nodes of financial business. We should not only see the risks it brings, but also see its positive effect on the financial industry in expanding the scope of services and improving service efficiency, promoting the advantages and eliminating disadvantages, and promoting the healthy development of the financial industry.
The topic of "platform finance" is different from our previous research. Platform companies are also a relatively new field for me to intervene in the financial business with the advantages of data and technology. In order to do a solid job in the research work, we have set up a research group composed of experts from financial institutions, research institutions, and technology companies, and more than 20 people directly participated in the research. In order to learn more about the financial business of technology platform companies, we conducted in-depth research on Internet platforms, and one survey lasted for many days, and the survey outline alone prepared more than ten pages. In the course of our research, we obtained a large amount of first-hand information and data. In addition, we have also received relevant research and written materials from other financial institutions, which has made our research more solid support.
With the deepening of research, we feel more and more that the reason why platform finance is rising and powerful is because of its data and technology advantages. They lay a large number of scenes, which not only facilitate the lives of residents, but also accumulate a large amount of user behavior data. Based on massive behavioral data, they can accurately and real-time characterize user risks, and the cost of depiction is much lower than that of traditional financial institutions, so they can gain an advantage in competition. Based on these advantages, platform finance has gradually established its own position in the process of communication, negotiation and cooperation with traditional finance. Therefore, the supervision of platform financial companies should be more of a problem of data governance.
While studying the domestic situation, we also pay attention to the study of relevant developments and policies abroad. The data protection and portability referred to in the EU's L&P Data Protection Regulation was a key focus of our discussions. We believe that there is a need to adequately protect user privacy and respect user rights. Behavioral data is the user's behavior data, which can be manifested and recorded with the help of the Internet platform, so the rights of the user should be fully respected. For behavior data containing user personal identification information, generally speaking, it is collected by the user based on the authorization required for a specific business scenario, and beyond the scope of this application, the user's consent should be obtained again, especially when the user data is not desensitized. Only in this way can the data sources of the Internet platform be compliant and stand the test.
On this basis, we believe that data is a very important factor of production in the new era, which should promote circulation and full synergy and sharing, so we put forward suggestions for exploring the establishment of a personal data account system and a two-tier account system in this book. This is a relatively advanced design, there are still many details that need to be further clarified, this book is limited in space, hoping to resonate with the industry and further explore the research.
In addition, we also focused on the "Federal Consumer Finance Law" report released by the FINANCIAL CONSUMER PROTECTION Agency in early 2021, which also has relevant combing, including the situation of US financial legislation, the rise of alternative data, the challenges to the protection of financial consumer rights, and how to improve the existing legal system, which are all good research materials.
In order to make our research more testable, we also invited the China Wealth Management 50 Forum to organize a special meeting after the preliminary draft, and invited relevant experts from regulatory authorities, financial institutions, universities and institutions, and foreign-funded institutions to review the research framework and main viewpoints and put forward suggestions for improvement. The judging session lasted all day, which was probably the longest of the 50-member forum's many workshops. We know that platform finance is a new thing, both efficiency and risk, opportunities and challenges coexist, we strive to be impartial, based on the principles of fairness and objectivity and seeking truth from facts to observe and examine, in order to make our views stand the test.
After the publication of the book "A New Era of Platform Finance", this research seems to be able to come to an end for a while, but we deeply feel that the wave of digital transformation of human society has just begun. Social attributes are the essential attributes of human beings, and human social attributes can only be reflected through various social activities. In the past, these social activities were all carried out in the offline physical world, but through observations in the past two years, it can be found that our social attributes are increasingly reflected in the digital world.
The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 is an important watershed, and scenes that were previously only seen in science fiction movies are gradually happening in real life. Once we turn on our phones or put on vr (virtual reality) glasses, we enter the digital world from the offline physical world, where an ordinary member can preach and point out the country. We have a dual identity, the digital world is a reflection of the offline physical world, and its behavioral characteristics may be more reflective of people's intrinsic values and attitudes. Human needs are diverse, material needs such as food, clothing, shelter and transportation must be met in the offline physical world, and emotional and cultural, artistic, social and other spiritual experiences such as joy and sorrow can be satisfied in the digital world.
From this point of view, the prospects of the digital world are unlimited, and it is not impossible for its output value to surpass the offline physical world. The digital world is different from the offline physical world, with its own operating laws and ethical rules, and we need to seize the time to continue to study in depth.
The digital wave is enormous. We should look at and design from a forward-looking and strategic perspective, study and analyze in the spirit of seeking truth from facts, seize opportunities to cope with challenges, lead the wave of human digitalization, and build a digital power!
September 28, 2021
(The views in this article only represent the author's personal, do not represent the position of Red Weekly, and the reference to individual stocks is only an example analysis, and does not make trading recommendations.) ）
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