Bank employees “seeking performance” online, gray industry chain emerges
Recently, reporters have discovered that social media has become a new window for some bank employees to obtain savings at high interest rates through online shopping. Some fund brokers use the Internet as a basis to travel between banks and depositors. They open stores on e-commerce platforms that specialize in “agency banking services,” and some bank employees provide online shopping-related services to complete business performance. A gray industrial chain surrounding various tasks of the bank gradually emerged.
From month-end deposits to pension account opening, “online shopping” appears in bank performance
Search for keywords such as “bank performance” and “draw deposits” on social platforms such as Xiaohongshu, Douyin, Weibo, etc., and you will see many “complaints” from bank employees: they either lament that the assessment tasks are difficult to complete, or ask for help Netizens make deposits and promise to pay them interest.
“100,000 to 500,000 yuan, contact us if you want!” Bank employees’ “help posts” often attract many such comments. “10,000” is a jargon saying that depositors can get 10 yuan of bank interest per day for every 10,000 yuan deposited, and a deposit of 500,000 yuan can get 500 yuan of interest per day.
Users who posted comments include depositors holding funds, as well as fund brokers who specialize in trading deposits. The reporter sent a private message to a user through Xiaohongshu. The user said that he “personally has funds and works as an intermediary in partnership.” At the end of the second quarter, the amount of deposits traded by his team was as high as “about 500 million yuan per person.”
Mr. Zhang, a capital broker, revealed that some bank branch presidents quote and give the discount amount to themselves, and then send the bank’s demand to depositors. The depositors deposit the funds in their own bank accounts and withdraw them after a specified time, and then they can get discount. “It’s very safe. You can just keep the money in your card overnight.” From July 1 to noon on July 6, he paid a total of more than 10,000 yuan in discount interest to depositors through WeChat transfer, ranging from 500 yuan to 3,000 yuan per person. .
Another capital broker, Mr. Li, told reporters that the “market price” of interest discounts reached more than “20,000” at the end of the second quarter of this year, and was around “60,000” to “70,000” at the end of other months. If bank employees want to cooperate with them, they need to pay an additional handling fee of about 10,000 yuan.
Some bank employees said that in addition to deposits, there are also online shopping performance phenomena such as personal pension account opening and digital renminbi registration. “A township branch, all filled with elderly people, was required to register ten digital RMB accounts a day” and “suddenly was given 100 pension tasks”… Fund brokers have found new business opportunities. On e-commerce platforms such as Taobao, JD.com, and Pinduoduo, products and stores that “complete banking tasks on behalf of others” have begun to appear and increase. Some stores have monthly sales of more than 50,000, and product reviews have reached thousands.
The reporter asked the customer service staff of several Taobao stores and found that the numbers on the price pages of most products were only “virtual prices.” The other parties quoted prices according to the difficulty and timeliness of different banking services, bank type, location, etc. The four types of digital RMB accounts are less than 10 yuan each, the second type of accounts are between 20 and 30 yuan each, and the prices of the third type of business range from dozens of yuan to more than 100 yuan. Some stores have done more than 3,000 orders and have been increasing prices.
Xu Mingdong, deputy dean of the Institute of Finance at the School of Economics at Fudan University, said that “discounting performance” through capital brokers and offline promotions has been an “open secret” in the banking industry for many years. The recent phenomenon of “online shopping performance” among bank employees is also a manifestation of the fact that banks’ deposit assessment tasks are placed on individual employees.
There are many risks behind the “one-day trip” of deposits and “everyone is happy”
Experts point out that compared with the local promotion model in the past, marketing models such as soliciting deposits and account registration are now active on online social platforms, which not only increases bank costs, leads to vicious competition, disrupts the development of the financial industry, but also risks personal privacy leaks.
“Banking services are of a ‘public nature’. Lack of liquidity can easily cause financial and economic instability. Therefore, banks’ business operations and employees’ professional qualifications must be subject to ‘strong supervision’ by laws, regulations and industry self-discipline standards.” “Constraints.” Ji Ligang, executive director of the China Financial Rule of Law Institute at Fudan University, pointed out that whether it is seeking help from netizens on social media, purchasing promotional services on e-commerce platforms, or absorbing deposits through fund brokers, there are various forms of “performance reduction” methods on the Internet. They are all illegal and illegal.
Article 12 of the “Electronic Commerce Law of the People’s Republic of China” stipulates that “E-commerce operators who engage in business activities and need to obtain relevant administrative licenses in accordance with the law shall obtain administrative licenses in accordance with the law.” “The so-called ‘completing banking tasks on behalf of others’ is based on commercial law’ Analysis from the perspective of presumption, in fact, the e-commerce platform is engaged in banking business and forms a ‘shadow bank’. The e-commerce platform does not have a financial license and cannot engage in banking business.” Ji Ligang said.
At the same time, high interest rates to attract savings also encourage vicious competition. Ye Xiaohua, senior partner of Beijing Jingshi Law Firm, pointed out: “Financial brokers use the Internet to mobilize the idle funds in the hands of savers, making the high-interest deposits that were originally in the ‘grey area’ explicit.” In Ji Ligang’s view, ” Bank employees’ online interest discounts to solicit deposits not only increase the bank’s financing costs by paying broker fees, but also disrupt the order of the deposit market and constitute unfair competition.”
In addition, this also increases the risk of leakage of personal privacy information. The “Notice on Matters Related to Regulating the Personal Deposit Business of Commercial Banks through the Internet” issued in 2021 clearly states that commercial banks are not allowed to carry out time deposits and fixed deposits through non-self-operated online platforms, including but not limited to non-self-operated online platforms. The business network platform provides marketing promotion, product display, information transmission, purchase entrance, interest subsidies and other services. The “Management Measures for the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests of Banking and Insurance Institutions” implemented this year requires that banking and insurance institutions should establish a consumer personal information protection mechanism, improve internal management systems, hierarchical authorization approval and internal control measures, and implement full-process grading of consumer personal information. Classified management and control effectively protects the security of consumers’ personal information.
Yu Baicheng, chief researcher of Houxue Research, said that if the “bought” customers provide their ID numbers, mobile phone numbers, etc. to third parties, it is easy to leak personal information. Third parties do not have adequate security measures to protect customer information, and some merchants even proactively leak account information, which may lead to personal information security issues.
What is even more worrying is that the behavior of capital brokers is of a gray nature. If there is collusion between capital brokers and bank employees, there may be illegal activities such as misappropriation of funds by employees and the risk of capital losses. “This has a significant impact on depositors, banks and the financial system.” Zhao Chunyong, director of Shandong Yiheng Law Firm, said bluntly that the greatest value of a bank lies in its reputation. Once problems arise, the bank’s reputation will be greatly reduced and the stability of the financial market will be undermined.
A multi-pronged approach is needed to cut off the gray industrial chain
With higher profit returns, a gray industry chain has formed around the various tasks of banks. Financial regulatory authorities should unite multiple departments to strengthen supervision and eliminate gray industry chains from the root.
One of the reasons for such behaviors as “interest discounts to attract savings” is that banks’ performance appraisal systems and indicators are unreasonable, and grassroots institutions and employees are under excessive appraisal pressure. Banks should balance the relationship between business development and risk prevention, and properly handle the relationship between short-term and long-term interests.
Xu Mingdong believes that using various means to “reduce performance” is a speculative behavior and exposes loopholes in the bank’s existing assessment mechanism. “If the bank fully realizes the damage caused by this kind of speculation to its own interests, it should take certain measures.” However, at present, banks are difficult to control the personal behavior of employees and are lazy in controlling it, condoning some violations of laws and regulations. Appear.
In this regard, Liu Xin, senior partner of Guoco Law Firm (Shanghai), believes that banks must first strengthen compliance education and warning education internally. At the same time, they need to continuously optimize the assessment mechanism and change single and crude assessment indicators, such as combining accounts. Continuity, activity, etc., and set up a scientific and reasonable performance appraisal mechanism.
The imperfect financial regulatory mechanism and insufficient punishment for violations are also important reasons for the repeated prohibition of this kind of chaos. In recent years, regulatory authorities have imposed fines on some banks that illegally solicit deposits, but the amount of fines is generally low, and it is difficult to “catch up” all hidden violations. Ye Xiaohua believes that regulatory authorities must increase penalties for violations of laws and regulations.
For social media and e-commerce platforms, when providing financial-related products and services, they should comply with relevant regulations of regulatory authorities to avoid encouraging unhealthy practices.
“Currently, in the face of the relatively new business format of publishing financial violation information, platforms have insufficient understanding of the necessity of control and lack of experience in handling it, so they adopt a ‘tacit approval’ attitude.” Liu Xin suggested that social media need to take effective measures to identify Financial violation information must be screened, deleted, removed from shelves, etc. in a timely manner to avoid being used by money brokers to engage in illegal activities; e-commerce platforms need to conduct necessary reviews and checks on the services launched by stores, and conduct compliance with store operations. Guidance and supervision.
