The ministries and commissions acted to keep the children's wallets tight for the parents of more than 40 million college students.
On March 17, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and other five ministries and commissions issued the "Notice on Further Regulating the Supervision and Management of College Students’ Internet Consumer Loans,” stating that microfinance companies must not issue Internet consumer loans to college students and prohibit non-licensed institutions from providing credit services to college students.
The outside world interpreted this as that multiple platforms including WeChat and Alipay in the APP can no longer provide loans to college students. The topic "Huabei can't lend money to college students" immediately rushed into the hot search on Weibo, with more than 990 million readings and 44,000 discussions.
On March 22, some college students posted screenshots saying that "Huabe could not be activated temporarily" or the quota was adjusted, and some students posted screenshots of voluntarily closing Huabei, saying "Farewell to the life of installment repayment".
Netizens said that Huabei could not be opened for the time being. Picture/Weibo screenshot
Some netizens ridiculed: "Huabe lost its biggest market."
Huabei is indeed popular among young people. As long as the outstanding amount of Huabei is paid off before the next repayment date, there is no need to pay a penny of interest, which is equivalent to one month of free use of the money.
The one-stop online job application platform for college students once issued a questionnaire to 100,000 post-00 college students across the country. The results show that the ratio of necessary and non-essential expenditures for post-00 college students is about 6:4, and non-essential expenditures are mainly spent on social entertainment and travel. Wait. Purchasing desires continue to increase, and they suffer from insufficient funds to meet their own consumer needs. Over 70% of college students use Internet financial platforms and online installment stores as instalment methods, and 40.8% of them frequently use them. Easy to repay, quick to pay and simple payment methods like Huabei have become the main overdraft means for post-00 college students.
The Internet is full of various "interest-free, spend future money first" promotion, which induces young people to spend the future money impulsively-without interest, you can spend the future money first, and there is almost no cost. Why not do it?
Huabei became the first step for young people to spend money. The Times Weekly reporter interviewed 10 college students and found that the time to open or use Huabei for the first time was shortly after entering university, and the monthly living expenses ranged from 1,000 to 2,000 yuan. They opened Huabei not all for the sake of advanced consumption. Some people want to rely on Huabei's "interest-free borrowing for one month" rule to invest and manage money. Some people are even driven by speculative psychology and want to take advantage of Huabei's loopholes to make pocket money.
But there has never been a free lunch in the market. Some college students who think they are savvy think that paying back the money on time can escape the constraints of Huabei, but unexpectedly, in order to pay back the money on time, they fall into the online loan routine.
We selected three college students, through their Huabei bills, to spy on contemporary college students' view of money and consumption.
The following is their narrative.
I want to borrow "money to make money"
I didn’t expect it to be a loan
Qianshan 23-year-old senior
In the beginning, I wanted to squeeze the wool of "Papa Horse".
Freshman came into contact with funds and Bitcoin, and saw that Huabei could borrow money interest-free for a month, so I wanted to borrow Huabei's money to make a living, and then use my living expenses to earn some pocket money. It is equivalent to "Papa Ma" lending me free money for investment. If the fund makes money, then go and spend it, and if it loses money, it will be filled with the living expenses of the next month. When I think about it, I feel that money will "live" and it will be possible to "money to make money".
When it comes to investment and financial management, it's actually a small mess. Investing a few hundred yuan to buy a fund in Alipay, and earning ten to twenty yuan is very happy. The fund's fluctuations of no more than 3% a day means that the return will not be particularly high, but the small amount of money I earn from buying funds is gradually unable to meet my needs.
In order to pursue greater returns, I started to buy stocks. The sense of accomplishment of playing stocks is much more comparable to that of funds. After all, the volatility can reach 10%, and the large volatility means that the income will also be large, and it is easy to make a lot of money.
But for students who have no income, a crash is enough to make people "embarrassed."
At that time, I fancy a stock with a price of 8 yuan. I bought at least 100 shares at a time. I didn't know where the courage came from. I threw in 800 yuan at a time without blinking my eyes. Later I discovered that I actually bought when the stock price was high. In order to level the cost, we had to keep increasing positions. Unexpectedly, the more it fell, the more it fell, the more it fell. Before long, my monthly living expenses were all invested in this stock.
This is the first time I have pledged all my living expenses to investment. Although it was only 1,500 yuan, I was very flustered. Because it hasn't been long since I entered the stock market, I usually look at the news more often without careful study at all. Seeing that the stocks are falling day by day, there is no trend of rebounding at all, but they can only cut their flesh and get rid of the set, and bid farewell to the first stock market career to lose money. I still remember that I lost 800 yuan.
Stocks bought at a high price drop every day. Picture/provided by the interviewee
If you give me another chance, I will uninstall the stock trading software and be a good person. But the reality is that because I was unwilling to lose 800 yuan, I took the remaining money and bought new shares. That time, it also ended in a loss.
All the living expenses disappeared in the stock market, the capital chain was suddenly broken, and the flowers borrowed for the wool became a huge burden. How to repay the flowers that owed nearly 2,000 yuan? Telling parents must be exchanged for a reprimand.
Later I learned that not telling my parents at the time was the worst thing I had ever done.
In order to repay the loan from Shanghuabei, I thought of repaying the loan with a loan.
One day I saw an advertisement for interest-free loans on the Internet. After contacting the other party, the other party stated that he was a regular company specializing in small loans. In order to show his regularity, he also specially showed the contract, saying that he could only lend up to 3,000 yuan. I want to repay more loans.
At that time, I was already very anxious. I was afraid that I would count interest if I didn't get the money, and I was worried that it would affect my personal credit. When I was in a hurry, I couldn't take care of anything. I didn't see the dense terms in the contract and signed it anxiously. I quickly took the 2,000 yuan I borrowed and returned the flowers.
Huabei owes 0, and life seems to have returned to its original point.
One month later, I received a call for dunning. The other party said that I owed RMB 3,000 and sent a contract signed by me personally. Only then discovered that the terms of interest calculation and service fee collection were clearly written above. According to their calculation method, I borrowed 2,000 yuan, and I did have to pay back 3,000 yuan even with interest.
The other party still has my handle-the mobile phone address book. When borrowing money, the other party asked for a mobile phone address book, saying that this was a form of guarantee. Now it has become that if I don't pay the money, the other party will tell everyone who knows me: XXX owes the money and will not pay it back.
My first reaction was that I encountered a scam company! In order to quickly repay the 3,000 yuan loan, I had to find another loan company to borrow money. Unexpectedly, a month later, the same thing happened again.
As a result, my life fell into a desperate infinite loop-taking loans to support loans. This kind of stupid thing actually happened to me. I borrowed 7 or 8 platforms back and forth, and used the money borrowed from the latter platform to repay the principal and interest of the previous platform. In the end, I couldn’t figure it out and I couldn’t remember how much interest each platform was. Knowing how much money these platforms have pitted me on, the phone rang all the sounds of debt collection and intimidation. During that time, as long as the phone rang, I would be scared, and the phone could only be muted.
At the beginning, I dared not tell my parents, but now, I really dare not tell my parents.
The most worrying day came-the lending platform "exploded" my address book, and my family, friends, classmates, and teachers all knew that I would not repay the loan. After receiving the text messages, the classmates saw that I was eager to talk. When the teacher talked to me, the words were serious and earnest, and my parents kept sighing, with disappointment in their eyes.
During that time I like to take pictures of the sky, especially on cloudy days. Sometimes I pray for rain and wash everything away. Photo/courtesy of interviewee
In the end, my parents paid me back the money-all platforms add up to nearly 40,000 yuan. The nightmare that lasted for a year is finally over.
Back then, when I saw that Huabei could be borrowed interest-free for a month, I had a "wrong mind" and felt that I could take advantage of Huabei and free up living expenses to "make money". As a result, "stealing chickens does not cause eclipses," and fell into an online lending whirlpool.
Now the Huabei quota has been tightened, down to 3,000 yuan, my self-righteousness has also been reduced, and I set the upper limit of the Huabei quota to 1000 yuan by myself.
Part-time job with flowers
I still work for Huabei
Mumu 20-year-old freshman
I use flowers to make money.
I wanted to find a part-time job in the summer of my freshman year. The other party said that they should first place an order to buy something, and then return the money for the purchase after calculating the sales, and then pay the order fee.
It seems to be a very simple job, you can make money with your fingers. The other party gave me a link to the shopping platform and asked me to place an order for 500 yuan. But my living expenses are only 1,000 yuan, and 500 yuan in advance is definitely not enough to live, so I want to use Huabei to advance it. Anyway, there is a quota of 2,000 yuan, just fill it back when the money is refunded. The transaction was very refreshing. After the other party saw my payment voucher, they refunded me and gave me an extra 150 yuan for the order fee. Huabei's arrears returned to 0, and the amount was immediately restored.
I made money so easily, so I didn't even think about it, so I took the second order.
The second time you want to buy goods is 2000 yuan. I used Huabei to pay again, thinking that it was just an excessive amount of Huabei like last time. But I didn't expect that after sending the payment voucher, the other party actually said that the money would not be refunded this time. "The first one is to adapt first. Starting from the second one, you must complete three orders before you complete the task, and then you can refund the order fee."
This seems to be wrong. I asked people everywhere if I was cheated in this situation, and I went to see what others said on the Internet, and found that this was just a cover! The 2,000 yuan I paid did not go to the payment platform at all, but was directly transferred to the other party's private account.
I hurried to ask the other party for a refund, but the other party kept saying that there was no deception, and of course he insisted not to refund the money.
But Huabei has a pit of 2,000 yuan in arrears to fill. I didn't dare to tell my parents, so I asked my girlfriend to borrow 700 yuan for the emergency, and there was 1300 yuan left. I wanted to repay the loan in three installments, 400 yuan a month.
400 yuan may be a small amount, but this money is almost half of my living expenses-only 1,000 yuan a month, 400 yuan is not enough to live.
In order to repay the money, I have to calculate every consumption, even every meal, all the expenses are saved as long as I can, and I earn as long as I can earn: I work part-time in the school cafeteria to help auntie with meals, 10 yuan per hour, You can also have a free meal in the cafeteria at noon. The school canteen also has a small program for food delivery. I also went to work as a canteen takeaway. I sent 1.2 yuan for one order, and two or 30 orders a day.
This is all work that I can only do when I wait for lunch and when others have a meal break. You can only climb the stairs to deliver food. The canteen is on the 3rd floor. People who order the food usually live on the 5th and 6th floors. I often climb up and down at noon. I am hungry, tired and uncomfortable. I don’t dare to stop or pick up. When it comes to complaints , this building is vain.
One time the delivery was wrong, but the other party didn’t blame me, and he gave me the milk tea he ordered. Photo/provided by interviewee
Girls, who doesn’t love beauty? The other girls came to the cafeteria to eat in beautifully dressed, but I served them in the cafeteria. The other girls were sleeping in the dormitory, and I was sweating and panting upstairs to deliver food.
Two months have passed, and now there is only 300 yuan left. My parents don't know, and I don't plan to tell them anymore. I'm not afraid of losing face when I meet my classmates and teachers while cooking or delivering food. I just want to make more money without affecting my studies and quickly pay off my debts.
Thinking back now, this is actually not Huabei's fault, it's that I shouldn't borrow Huabei's money to brush the bills, and overestimated my ability to repay. Making money is not as easy as buying orders. Now I just want to pay back the money with little effort.
Unstoppable temptation of consumption
Can't control the hand to chop
Ice cream 21 year old sophomore
There is only one difference between buying things with flowers and countless times.
Before it's useless, I worry about not paying it off. But as long as you have used it once and paid it back on time, and it doesn't have much impact on your life, you will feel that it is nothing and it is very convenient to spend money. Every month after that, from strictly controlling the consumption within the living expenses, until later I felt that it was nothing to spend more than three to five hundred yuan. Once the desire to consume is awakened, it will feel that there are more and more things to buy, and life needs more money to support.
In fact, from the perspective of food and clothing, the life of college students on campus can almost be omitted except for meals. But when the classmates around are entertaining and shopping, I will inevitably think: "Can I live a life like this?" In addition to eating in the cafeteria, I also want to go to dinner with my roommates occasionally, I want to buy some clothes, and I want to be beautiful. Makeup.
But such a demand cannot be addressed to parents. They feel that 1,500 yuan a month's living expenses for college students can't be used up at all and they can save some. They believe that students just study hard, not go to school to play.
The first time I used flowers, I accompanied my roommate to the Nike shoe store, and I saw a pair of shoes that I liked for a long time on the booth. My roommate thought I liked it and persuaded me to buy it, but the price of those shoes was more than 500 yuan. This is of course not expensive in Nike shoes, but it is already very expensive for me. It is one-third of my living expenses. I usually hesitate for a long time to buy things with a unit price of more than 100 yuan.
But I really like those shoes. At that moment, a thought suddenly flashed through my mind--why don't you need to spend it, it's a big deal to save a little this month, and a little next month, you can fill up 500 yuan.
After this thought, my behavior became uncontrollable. I called the sales lady and asked her to find my shoe size, try the shoes, pay, and leave. Within five minutes, she completed this series of actions.
Back in the bedroom, looking at Nike's shoe box, I still can't believe I actually bought it.
Life after that can be imagined. In order to pay back the 500 yuan, he stipulated that he could only eat in the canteen, and the daily meal should not exceed 30 yuan, and he would not go out to dinner. After living in a tight life for two months, he got rid of Huabei. But wearing that pair of shoes every day, I am really happy. I feel that I don’t have to pick and search anymore, and I feel the pleasure of being satisfied.
Huabei allowed me to buy things I couldn't afford before, and let me experience a new way of life. Since then, every time I see something a bit expensive but I really want, I still open Huabei. It seems that it is good to be able to buy what you like with a little bit of life.
In the past, I could only buy canvas shoes for dozens of dollars, and I didn't know any brand. Now think about it, is it better to have a more expensive brand, and the students around me also wear these, but the price has increased by 10 times. Photo/Respondent provided
Especially "Double Eleven". Before I used Huabei, I always felt that this activity had nothing to do with me. Later, I chanted with flowers, and when I saw full reduction activities such as 400 yuan minus 40 yuan, I would also like to make up the order. This "40 yuan off" discount is so tempting, you must make up to 400 yuan and then pay the bill. Otherwise, you will suffer. Picking and picking to the end, looking at the shopping cart, this is almost 800 yuan. At this time, a new temptation appeared again-"Quickly minus 80 yuan for over 800". The 400 yuan pit originally dug has become deeper.