Gitzo Consumer Finance Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Gitzo") is the only foreign-funded company among the first four pilot consumer finance companies approved by CBRC.
He has more than 30 years of international experience in Basque banking and consumer finance, focusing on digital marketing, brand growth, customer analysis and other fields.
The following is a conversation with Basker Rangachari, head of product and market of Gitzo Consumer Finance Co., Ltd.:
1. We know that Gitzo began to implement the "2023 Strategy" last year, and one of the core of this strategy is "digitalization". What adjustments have been made to Gitzo's brand strategy in the process of digital transformation? What are the market insights behind these adjustments?
Basque: Gitzo's 2023 strategy is not only digital transformation, but also putting customers at the center of our business.
In the past 30 years, we have seen that China customers have been completely digitized, and consumers have adapted to the trend of digitalization. They are more eager for a comfortable lifestyle and are more willing to pay for convenience, flexibility and relaxation. Now, what they need more is a financial service partner who can help them save money, time and worry.
Gitzo has been deeply involved in the China market for many years, and its brand image has always been professional, respectable and trustworthy. The results of market research show that customers' awareness of Gitzo brand is in the forefront of consumer finance licensees, especially in the performance of non-prompting cognition and the first non-prompting cognition, which is better than other brands.
However, Gitzo's existing brand awareness is more based on the previous business model, which emphasizes offline consumption scenarios and sales staff guidance; In fact, Gitzo's business model has been upgraded. On the basis of credit service, we will provide more innovative products and value-added benefits to meet customers' diversified daily consumption needs.
Therefore, brand building is very important to Gitzo's 2023 strategy. It can shape customers' cognition of Gitzo and establish a positive emotional connection between customers and Gitzo. This determines whether customers are willing to enter our new ecosystem and remain loyal.
Our brand promise remains unchanged: Gitzo is the best shopping partner, providing seamless financial services and value-added experience.
What we are doing now is to overcome the gap between consumers' cognition of Gitzo brand. By analyzing customers' digital behavior and through various digital channels, customers can understand and agree with our entire eco-product system.
2. You have served as an executive in charge of market brands in many multinational financial enterprises, especially familiar with the Asian market. In your opinion, what elements should a successful consumer finance brand have?
Basque: To build a successful consumer finance brand, we must first study the customer groups we serve. In my past banking experience, I found that banks serve a wide range of customers, while consumer finance companies mainly serve blue-collar workers, most of whom are workers engaged in manufacturing and service industries, or small owners and flexible employees.
Blue-collar workers are short of money and time. Most of them are hourly workers.
They are worried that insufficient working hours will affect their income and that their jobs will be replaced by machine automation, which makes them feel insecure about their jobs.
A good consumer finance company should consider the psychological needs of its target customers and convince them that the services it provides and the image it displays are safe and reliable, just like friends.
Therefore, I believe that a successful consumer finance brand should have four characteristics:
1. Provide instant financial services anytime and anywhere, saving time for customers;
2. Transparent pricing and simple communication help to build trust and help customers worry;
3. Omni-channel customer service to meet the unique needs of target groups and help customers save manpower;
4. Like and practical brand tonality, you can become a trusted expert consultant and friend of the target customer base.
3. What do you think are the similarities and differences between China's consumer finance market and other countries?
Basque: Compared with Asian, American and European markets, I want to share three similarities and three differences.
Three similarities are:
1. Basic needs, life vision and family values of target customers;
3. In China, the United States, Europe and some developed Asian markets, regulators are constantly reshaping market dynamics and playing an active supervisory role in price control and capital adequacy ratio.
These three differences are:
1. Thanks to China's strong and stable economic growth in the past 20 years, customers in China have more confidence in the future and are less worried about unemployment. Therefore, they are more willing to use credit facilities to enjoy a higher quality of life. This has promoted the development of China's consumer finance market and made it more dynamic than other countries.
2. Except for Vietnamese who have similar entrepreneurial dreams, the entrepreneurial desire of China people is much stronger than that of many Southeast Asian markets. Consumers in other markets are willing to seek more leisure time. On the other hand, consumers in China do not hesitate to work hard and are willing to work long hours to improve their income and social status. Time is money and efficiency is life, which is the belief of China people. Consumers in China can arrange their time more reasonably and are willing to postpone instant leisure to get extra income. Therefore, when seeking financial services, price is not the only concern of consumers in China. They also value efficiency and practicality.
I have personally lived and worked in many countries, so I found that digital payment is more common in China, and the online development of financial services is also very rapid.
4. The uniqueness of China's consumer finance market. What are the opportunities and challenges for foreign-funded enterprises like Gitzo?
Basque: As far as China is concerned, the uniqueness and challenge of China's consumer finance market lies in that licensed consumer finance companies must compete with Internet giants with world-leading technology, abundant financial resources, huge scale and customer base. Although Gitzo Group has business in Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, India, Indonesia and other Asian countries, e-commerce in these countries is still growing, and there is no similar Internet giant to lead the market.
But the opportunities in China market are also attractive. First of all, in my experience, supervision is developing in the direction of benefiting licensed institutions, the business of non-licensed institutions is shrinking, and supervision is also strengthening supervision over microfinance companies. In fact, this is conducive to the long-term growth of the market, ensuring that the holders of compliance licenses have sufficient customer base and
Capital continues to promote the healthy development of consumer finance market.
For consumer financial institutions, success lies not in blindly lending a lot, but in whether there is a mature risk control collection system and asset portfolio to promote effective payment. This is what Gitzo is good at, because Gitzo has banking business in other countries, and our risk control level is closer to that of banks in quality and depth. With the active regulation, Gitzo, as the licensee, will have an advantage in the market competition.
In order to optimize media channels and content, we have cooperated with the industry-leading DMP data management platform providers and reached strategic cooperation with third-party data providers. Using the technology and resources of our partners, we can monitor the media performance in real time and improve our audience positioning, creative materials, bidding and frequency strategy according to customer responses.
6. You have repeatedly stressed the need to strengthen the "emotional connection" between Gitzo customers and brands. It is generally believed that Gitzo serves long-tailed people and is a price-sensitive customer. Is emotional connection really important to Gitzo's customers? Why?
Basque: Of course. In my opinion, customers will behave differently according to different purchase decisions. For example, if a woman has two handbags in front of her, she may choose one according to her preference, but if we show the logo on the handbag, and one of them is Chanel, then this woman is likely to choose Chanel, even if the bag is uglier, because Chanel is a symbol of elegance and nobility. This is the power of emotional connection.
In fact, the distribution of our customer base has also changed in the past two years. Two years ago, our customers were mainly middle-aged married customers, who were relatively more sensitive to price because they had to be careful about family expenses. But now, the proportion of young people in our customer base is gradually increasing, and they enjoy consumption more than calculating prices. Industry research reports such as McKinsey and Kaidu also show that the demand for young people to enjoy a better life continues to increase, and they gradually get used to realizing their wishes quickly through short-term credit services, and then repay them on schedule. Most of these young people are smart, and they know their solvency. They are also willing to support their own brands, so it is very important to establish emotional ties with young people.
Therefore, Gitzo's brand building has two directions: 1) For elderly customers, we should make them realize that the emotional connection between us is better than the price, and we also have more diverse and convenient services for them to choose from; 2) For young customers, first of all, we should establish a solid emotional foundation with them and drive them to actively choose Gitzo.
7. Please share a recent successful brand activity of Gitzo.
Next, we will launch more equity packages. This month, we will launch a brand-new Xiang Jie semi-annual card, which is more favorable to customers in the whole market. We will also increase brand exposure and silent wake-up activities in the second half of the year. At that time, we will be happy to share the relevant progress with you.
Related Questions and Answers: Related Questions and Answers: What kind of company is Gitzo Finance? Gitzo Finance entered China in 2004, officially launched its consumer finance business in Guangdong Province in June 5438+February 2007, set up the first operation back office in China in Shenzhen, and built a leading domestic financial data processing and business support platform. By establishing strategic cooperation with national retailers, we will provide customers with in-store consumer loan services. Gitzo is also the only foreign-funded company among the first four consumer finance companies piloted in China. By July, 20 19, it had started business in 29 provinces and municipalities directly under the central government, involving 3 12 cities, with active users160,000.
Gitzo Finance 20 18 Financial Report
By the end of 20 18, the net profit of Gitzo's consumer finance was139.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 36.56%; Loans reached 84.6565438 billion yuan, up 65.438+05.28% year-on-year; The loan balance was 89.835 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 65.438+05.29%; The non-performing loan ratio is 3.98%. From the analysis of its income statement, it can be seen that the operating income is mainly interest and handling fees. By the end of 20 18, the income was 26 1.5 1 billion yuan, up 43. 12% year-on-year. 26 1.5 1 100 million is the hard-earned money of the borrower. It is preliminarily estimated that the comprehensive loan interest rate exceeds 36%. Take Gitzo official website's commodity loan as an example. The loan finance is RMB 654.38+100000 with a term of 24 installments. The minimum monthly repayment is 590.47 yuan, which is the best price that the borrower can get, and the calculated interest rate is exactly 36%. If all kinds of service charges are included, it will definitely exceed 36%, which is appropriate. Gitzo is really smart, the product interest rate is on the usury line, and the high interest rate is charged through the service fee.
Introduction of Gitzo Commodity Loan.