After four regulatory interviews, new online lending regulations and suspension of listing, financial technology "unicorn" Ant Financial has fallen into endless discussions of strong supervision and deleveraging. Because of its infinite circulation and uncontrolled total leverage, the ABS financing model that Ant Financial relies on once became a "scourge", and some even concluded that "Ant ABS will cause the subprime mortgage crisis in China".
On May 25th, the bond project information platform of Shanghai Stock Exchange revealed that the original owners were two ABS projects, namely "Bai Hua" and "Borrowing Bai", with a total planned issuance of 654.38+08 billion yuan, and the status was "terminated".
On the eve of the suspension of listing of ants, the China Banking Regulatory Commission and the People's Bank of China issued the Interim Measures for the Management of Online Microfinance Business (hereinafter referred to as the "new regulations on microfinance"). The new regulatory regulations clearly point out that "the balance of funds integrated by online small loan companies through the issuance of standardized creditor's rights assets such as bonds and asset securitization products shall not exceed 4 times of their net assets". The paid-in capital of the main companies of "flower shop" and "lending shop" is 4 billion yuan and 654.38+02 billion yuan respectively.
Since the suspension of listing, the financing of ant ABS has been gradually limited. Three weeks after the IPO was suspended, although the 20 billion yuan ABS product of Ant Financial was approved by the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the issuance rate of new ABS increased. Looking back at the "termination" of the issuance, it can be said that it directly began to "cut off the supply".
The 654.38+08 billion yuan ABS project in Huayuan and Bai Jie was terminated.
On May 25th, the information platform of the bond project of Shanghai Stock Exchange disclosed 26 ABS products with "terminated audit" at one time, and the planned total issuance amount exceeded 654.38+05 billion yuan, the scale reached a new high since 202 1.
Among them, most of them are all kinds of real estate companies, urban investment groups, Lv Wen real estate development companies and other housing-related enterprises, as well as trust companies existing as SVP.
In addition, the original owner (issuer) was Ant Group's two special asset support plans, with a total amount of 654.38+08 billion yuan, which were terminated by Shanghai Stock Exchange.
Specifically, the bond of "Tian Hong Innovation Garden No.8-15 Consumer Credit Financing Asset Support Special Plan" is planned to be issued with an amount of 8 billion yuan, and the variety is ABS. The original owner is Chongqing Ant Microfinance Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Ant Microfinance"), and the plan manager is Tian Hong Innovation.
It is understood that "CITIC Securities borrows the fifth to fourteenth consumer loan asset-backed special plan bonds", and the planned issuance amount is 654.38+000 billion yuan. The variety is ABS, the original owner is Chongqing Ant Small and Micro Loan Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Ant Shangcheng Small Loan"), and the plan manager is CITIC Securities.
Ant Micro Loan and Ant Shangcheng Small Loan are the main operators of Ant Flower Garden and Ant Borrowing Garden respectively, and both companies are wholly owned by Ant Group.
On 20 15, ant group launched a flower shop and a loan shop, with two small loan companies as the main lenders respectively, and then issued ABS for financing.
According to media reports, as the two most important credit products of Ant Group, in just five years, the number of flower buds and loan buds has increased from 2.8 billion to one trillion.
According to the prospectus of Ant Group, the capital of Ant Group is 36 billion yuan. Under the action of ABS, the total loan amount will reach 2 15 trillion yuan in the first half of 2020 alone, and the annual forecast is 4 trillion yuan.
Less than 40 billion loans reached 4 trillion, and leverage exceeding 100 times caused an uproar. In contrast, the leverage ratio of domestic banks is about 13 times.
As a result, after the IPO of Ant Financial Services was suspended, discussions about the high leverage of Ant Financial Services ABS were overwhelming, and various concerns followed. What's more, compared with the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008. Ant financial service ABS has become a "scourge" for a time.
"Unlimited leverage" will come to an end and ABS will be restricted.
In fact, after the ant IPO was urgently stopped, the ant ABS continued to exert its strength.
On June 25th, 2020, the announcement of 165438+ corporate bond project information platform of Shanghai Stock Exchange showed that the status of two ABS financing projects under Ant Group had been updated to pass, with a total scale of 20 billion yuan, namely, the special asset support plan for Guotai Junan Loan 4- 12 and CITIC Securities 1- 10.
In the same year165438+1October 23rd, Ant Shangcheng Small Loan was issued1700 million yuan of ABS with AAA debt rating.
However, some people pointed out that "IPO suspension also has an immediate impact on ABS". On October 9th, 2020165438+/kloc-0, Ant Shangcheng issued 2.03-year ABS with AA+ rating, with 4.97% in coupon rate, which was significantly higher than the coupon rate range of 3.75%-4.55% from June to September.
According to the statistics of Enterprise Alert, by the end of 2020, ants had issued 728.603 billion yuan of ABS products, including 263.203 billion yuan of ABS products with small loans from ants and 465.4 billion yuan of ABS products with small loans from ants.
Through ABS, Ant Group "off-balance-sheet" the assets borrowed by Huayuanhe, which are then bought and held by investors, and then circulated to lend funds. This "light asset" model takes up less capital, but Ant Financial has also been accused by some insiders as "unlimited leverage".
Ants have achieved rapid growth by relying on joint loans and loan-helping models. Of the 2./kloc-0. 5 trillion loans, only 2% are off-balance-sheet loans of Ant Group, and the remaining 98% are issued or securitized by cooperative financial institutions.
Under the restriction of supervision on the capital and joint guarantee ratio of online loans and small loans, the "infinite leverage" of long-term disputes over online loans will come to an end.
One of the regulatory directions of the new regulations on small loans is "controlling leverage", which breaks the strange phenomenon that tens of billions of loans are released with low capital.
The new regulations have an all-round "pressure drop" on the overall level of leverage: in a single joint loan, the investment ratio of online small loan companies shall not be less than 30%. The leverage ratio of external financing is limited to less than 5 times, that is, the balance of non-standard financing (bank loans, shareholder loans, etc.). ) the online small loan company shall not exceed 1 times of its net assets; Standardized financing balance (bonds, asset securitization products, etc.). ) shall not exceed 4 times the net assets.
If the new regulations on small loans are implemented, the scale of ABS issued by ants shall not exceed 4 times of net assets.
In addition, the new regulations point out that in a single joint loan, the proportion of small loan companies operating online small loan business shall not be less than 30%. Under the new capital contribution ratio, the capital replenishment of financial technology companies is naturally under pressure.
On April 12, the People's Bank of China, China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, China Securities Regulatory Commission, Foreign Exchange Bureau and other financial management departments jointly interviewed Ant Group again to conduct in-depth communication on the rectification plan. Its rectification contents include "seriously rectifying illegal financial activities such as credit, insurance and wealth management, and controlling high leverage and risk contagion".
After the confession was cut off
In the asset securitization market, ant ABS is a special one. The underlying assets of Huabai and Jiebai are small and highly dispersed lending assets.
Asset securitization generally depends on the project credit of the underlying assets, with reference to the subject qualification of the issuer. But to a certain extent, the industry still pays more attention to the credit qualification of Ant Group.
It is reported that Ant Financial has designed ABS products layer by layer. Among them, priority buyers are generally banks' own funds and wealth management funds, and inferior ones are generally purchased by brokers and asset management funds, and even plan managers will hold some.
The flower bud ABS is generally divided into three layers: priority, sub-priority and sub-priority, with priority accounting for the main part. In one of the ant ABS, the proportion of priority, secondary priority and secondary asset-backed securities is 89%, 4% and 7% respectively.
In fact, most of the consumer loans of ants are transferred to banks, trusts and other financial institutions. Whether it is ant ABS or ABS issued by these financial institutions, their investors are still financial institutions. From the perspective of penetration, the source of funds of financial institutions is nothing more than deposits and raised wealth management products. If the underlying loan assets are at risk, it will really affect the stability of financial institutions and systems.
Ant Financial Service keeps increasing the amount of funds through ABS. Lenders are banks and banks that take risks. A large part of the income is in Ant Financial, and the risks and benefits do not match. Under the current business model, Ant Financial has unlimited motivation to expand its business scale. Once there is a large-scale overdue service to customers, the capital of Ant Financial will never be able to resist risks.
Relevant people believe that it may be difficult to issue ant ABS in the near future, and the key is to convince the major banks.
Some people think that exchange ABS is a standardized asset, not a "non-standard", and banks and brokers are of course compliant. After the listing through ABS, ants transfer the income and risk to the corresponding investors. As an investor, the bank's own funds need to accrue risk capital for its purchase of ant ABS assets according to the Basel agreement, and ants no longer need to accrue risk capital according to the Basel agreement, otherwise it is double accrual.
Online small loan companies "evade" leverage supervision and release tens of billions of loans with low registered capital. The reason is that after the ABS statement is issued, the joint lending institutions are not included in the scope of leverage and do not need to withdraw from venture capital.
Ant Financial passes on the risk to investors through the operation of borrowing money and complicated product design.
At present, Ant also has a "Caitong Asset Management Flower Garden Credit Payment Asset Support Special Plan", with a planned issuance scale of 8 billion yuan and a status of "accepted".
It is pointed out that whether the ABS project will be terminated depends on the overall rectification progress of Ant Group. From the perspective of consumer finance companies, ABS products can be issued if certain regulatory requirements are met, and within the scope of leverage, funds can also be raised through interbank lending and bond issuance, not necessarily ABS.