The second is the risk of maturity mismatch, that is, the investment assets of Internet wealth management products have a long maturity, while the liabilities have a short maturity. Once the liabilities cannot be rolled on time, liquidity risk may occur. Of course, a major function of financial institutions is to convert short-term funds into long-term funds, so financial institutions will face different degrees of maturity mismatch, and the key is the degree of mismatch.
The third is the lender of last resort risk. Although commercial banks also face the risk of maturity mismatch, and the wealth management products issued by commercial banks also face the risk of credit default and maturity mismatch, an important difference compared with internet finance is that commercial banks can finally get the lender of last resort support provided by the central bank. Of course, this kind of support comes at a great price. For example, commercial banks must pay 20% of the statutory deposit reserve and their capital adequacy ratio must be higher than 8%.
Regulatory requirements for risk provision and liquidity ratio. In contrast, Internet finance is currently facing a pattern of lack of supervision, so its operating cost is low and it lacks lender of last resort protection.
In addition to the above traditional risks, China's Internet financial products also face a series of unique risks:
The first is legal risk. At present, the internet finance industry is still in a state of no threshold, no standard and no supervision. This has caused some Internet financial products (especially wealth management products) to wander in the gray area between legal and illegal, and a little carelessness may touch the high-voltage line of "illegally absorbing public deposits" or "illegally raising funds".
Second, it has increased the difficulty of the central bank's monetary and credit regulation. On the one hand, the innovation of internet finance makes the central bank's traditional intermediate goal of monetary policy face a series of challenges. For example, should virtual currency (such as Q currency) be included in M 1? For another example, because internet finance companies are not bound by the statutory deposit reserve system, this actually leads to the amplification of the currency multiplier.
The third is the risk of personal credit information being abused. First of all, Internet finance companies obtain personal and corporate credit information through data mining and data analysis, and use it as the main basis for credit rating. Secondly, whether the information obtained through the above channels can truly, comprehensively and accurately measure the credit risk of rating subjects, and whether there are selective deviations and systematic deviations.
The fourth is information asymmetry and information transparency. As mentioned earlier, the Internet finance industry is currently in a state of lack of supervision. Is there an independent third party that can manage this risk? How to prevent internet finance companies from stealing from themselves? After all, relevant surveys show that only about 20% of Internet P2P companies have professional risk control teams.
The fifth is technical risk. Unlike traditional commercial banks, which have highly independent communication networks, Internet finance enterprises are in an open network communication system, and the security of TCP/IP protocol itself is facing great criticism, while the current key management and
The imperfect encryption technology makes the internet financial system vulnerable to computer viruses and network hackers. At present, considering the high risk of internet financial accounts being stolen, many people are prevented from participating in internet finance, among them are by no means professional financial or IT professionals. Therefore, Internet companies must continue to invest heavily in their own trading systems and data systems to ensure security, which will undoubtedly increase the operating costs of Internet finance companies and weaken their cost advantages over traditional financial industries.
To sum up, since Internet finance enterprises in China are facing so many risks in the initial stage, should we use this as an excuse to slow down or even stifle this valuable financial innovation? The answer is naturallyno. All parties concerned should fully consider the potential risks and promote the steady and sustainable development of Internet finance.
Relevant suggestions include:
First, fully strengthen industry self-discipline. Replacing government approval with industry access will help to standardize industry development and avoid excessive government intervention by strengthening the role of industry associations. The current Zhongguancun Internet Finance Industry Association and the Internet Finance Thousand People's Meeting are all beneficial attempts;
The second is to strengthen investor education and fully remind investors of the possible risks of investing in Internet financial products, and this risk is obviously higher than that of investing in similar traditional financial products;
Third, we should strengthen network security management to prevent the system from being paralyzed by hacker attacks from a higher level;
Fourth, regulators should build a flexible, targeted and flexible supervision system, which should not only make up for the lack of supervision, but also avoid excessive supervision.