Finance is more important, and of course there are supervision departments and personnel!

On July 18, 2008, the People's Bank of China and other ten ministries and commissions jointly issued the Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Healthy Development of Internet Finance (hereinafter referred to as the Guiding Opinions), which defined the concept of Internet finance for the first time, involving Internet payment, peer-to-peer lending, equity crowdfunding and the third-party depository system of customer funds, and divided the regulatory functional departments of various forms of Internet finance.

A series of changes are waiting for answers in reality, such as what will happen if we formally bid farewell to the barbaric growth of internet finance, when the supervision will land, whether the industry is facing a new round of reshuffle, and whether investors can really benefit.

Internet finance has laws to follow.

On July 20th, two days after the publication of the Guiding Opinions, Internet finance concept stocks broke out in an all-round way, and 12 stocks from basic fields such as credit reporting, mobile payment and p2p were blocked. In addition, the huge growth space of sub-industries is also reflected.

"Internet finance is one of the main forces to promote financial marketization in China. It has vitality that the traditional financial market does not have, and it also contains unlimited possibilities and opportunities. " Yu Dongsheng, ceo of Apeng Loan and vice chairman of Internet Investment Management Advisory Committee of China Electronic Commerce Association, said in an interview with the reporter of Legal Person.

In 20 15, among the 22 internet finance concept companies that have published semi-annual performance forecasts, the proportion of companies whose net profit increased by more than 5 times was 13.6%, and the proportion of companies whose net profit increased by more than 1 times was 310.8%.

The promulgation of the Guiding Opinions has also injected a booster into various sub-sectors, in which it is proposed to actively encourage the innovation of Internet financial platforms, products and services, stimulate market vitality, and support qualified financial institutions to build innovative Internet platforms to carry out online banking, Internet securities, online insurance, online fund sales, online consumer finance and other businesses; Support Internet companies to establish Internet payment institutions, peer-to-peer lending platforms, equity crowdfunding platforms and online financial product sales platforms according to laws and regulations; Encourage e-commerce enterprises to build and improve the online financial service system and effectively expand the e-commerce supply chain business under the conditions of complying with financial laws and regulations; Encourage employees to actively carry out product, service, technology and management innovation to enhance the core competitiveness of employees.

In addition, the Guiding Opinions also affirmed that equity crowdfunding is an organic part of multi-level capital markets. This has also been interpreted by the industry as equity crowdfunding has been juxtaposed with the main board, the Growth Enterprise Market and the New Third Board, and there is no longer a status gap.

"Driven by the new market environment and new consumer demand, Internet finance has improved the service quality and terminal service of finance, but it has not changed the essence of the financial industry." Chen Li, an analyst with the Internet Finance Department of China E-commerce Research Center, told the reporter of Legal Person.

"Internet financial supervision has been difficult to produce for a long time, and policies are a big plus for the development of Internet finance." As a new thing, Internet finance has opened the door for the financing of start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises. At the beginning of its development, there were many problems, which required both market drive and policy support to create a good policy environment for the development of Internet finance.

Clear regulatory responsibility

Some insiders have suggested that the separate management of the Guiding Opinions has also diversified the market identity, and the emergence of regulatory agencies can rectify and reform some chaos in the current Internet financial market.

Li Aijun, director of the Research Center for Financial Innovation and Internet Finance Legal System of China University of Political Science and Law, told the reporter of Legal Person that the core issues solved in the Guiding Opinions are to clarify the definition and essence of Internet finance, clarify the principles, objectives, subjects, objects and methods of supervision, and stipulate the third-party depository of banks.

For Internet payment, the Guiding Opinions pointed out that we should always adhere to the purpose of serving the development of e-commerce and provide small, fast and convenient micropayment services for the society. Internet payment business is supervised by the People's Bank of China.

In P2P loans, the CBRC is responsible for supervision. To clarify the nature of information intermediary, it is mainly to provide information services for both borrowers and borrowers to borrow directly, and not to provide credit enhancement services or illegal fund-raising.

In addition, equity crowdfunding financing must be carried out through the platform of equity crowdfunding intermediary (Internet website or other similar electronic media). Equity crowdfunding financiers should be small and micro enterprises, and should truthfully disclose key information such as business model, management, finance and capital use to investors through equity crowdfunding financing intermediaries, and must not mislead or defraud investors. Equity crowdfunding financing business is supervised by the CSRC.

As the key link of industry risk control-fund custody, the Guiding Opinions also clarified that the People's Bank of China and the financial supervision department should implement supervision according to the division of responsibilities and formulate relevant supervision rules. It is also required that, unless otherwise stipulated, employees should choose qualified banking financial institutions as fund depository institutions to manage and supervise client funds and realize separate account management of client funds and employees' own funds. The customer's fund depository account shall be subject to independent audit, and the audit results shall be disclosed to the customer.

"At present, there are very few funds managed, independently audited and made public by banks in the industry," Yu Dongsheng said. "Aside from the issue of consciousness, this does involve some technical docking obstacles. Under the strong impetus of supervision, it will take time and the joint efforts of all parties to establish a brand-new mechanism for Internet companies and banks. "

Li Mingshun, founder and president of Haodai.com, once publicly stated that Internet finance, as a new financial model, could have developed very smoothly with the help of internet plus, but recently it gradually deviated from the original value orientation and accumulated risks in the industry. At this stage, the relevant regulatory authorities have introduced industry norms and access mechanisms, which is conducive to improving the long-term healthy development of Internet finance.

The promulgation of "Guiding Opinions" has made the development of the industry follow for a moment, but what can be seen at present is only an outline direction, and it may take some time for the specific rules to be promulgated. The specific rules should be a process of continuous introduction and improvement.

Facing the challenge of continuous innovation

The development of internet finance is of great significance to the promotion of the financial industry and opens the door for mass entrepreneurship and innovation. It can play a unique role in meeting the investment and financing needs of small and micro enterprises and low-and middle-income groups, improving the quality and efficiency of financial services, guiding private finance to standardization, and expanding the opening up of the financial industry.

The biggest highlights of the Guiding Opinions are the classification of "peer-to-peer lending", the determination of Internet financial model, legal innovation (returning to the rule of law) and the protection of consumers' rights and interests.

According to public data, from 565,438+0,000 in 2065,438+0 to 965,438+0,000 in 2065,438+04, the "high net worth" population with investable assets exceeding 654,380+0,000 yuan in China has shown a rapid growth trend in recent years. By the end of 20 14, the total private investable assets in China were about 106.2 trillion yuan, an increase of 33. 1 trillion yuan over 201year, with an average annual growth of 13.3%. The market is developing too fast for traditional financial institutions to keep up.

The strong integration ability of internet finance means that the power of innovation is endless, and making up for the shortcomings of traditional finance is only one of them. The continuous development of internet finance also means higher requirements for supervision.

Internet finance has four opportunities: cross-group, cross-region, cross-industry and cross-border.

"The services we hope to provide are not limited to the simplest financial services. On the basis of fully meeting customers' financing needs, I hope to give customers more experiences. We are developing supporting catering and entertainment experience projects, and everything that enhances the customer experience is within our integrated innovation concept. " Yu Dongsheng said.

The Guiding Opinions encourages employees to cooperate and develop together, especially the cooperation between the insurance industry and Internet finance enterprises. This means that in the future, Internet finance companies will be encouraged to make full use of the characteristics of the insurance industry and eliminate risks in innovation. Different from insurance cooperation and cooperation with guarantee institutions, insurance is to eliminate risks and guarantee is to transfer risks.

Of course, the scope of cross-border integration supervision is still very narrow. How to effectively adjust the legal relationship between the more complex Internet financial markets is a higher requirement for the overall structure of China's economic marketization development.

Of course, traditional financial giants will not miss the next development opportunities. After they formally entered the internet financial market, their strong financial background and rich superior resources undoubtedly impacted many small and medium-sized enterprises in the internet financial industry.

We hope that the state can treat state-owned enterprises equally in policy, at least not favoring them. From the perspective of financial marketization, it is also necessary to properly support private enterprises.