The ants took off their vests.

Source

Source | FintechBook

Author | Lehman

In 2000, Xianglin Li, an actuary from China and working in JPMorgan Chase, explained in his paper On Default Correlation: A Dependent Function Method that the standard Gaussian copula curve was introduced with the help of actuarial and heartbreaking effects, and the market price data of credit default swaps (CDS) was put forward as the basis for judging default correlation. This theory was considered by the industry to solve the most intractable "default correlation" problem on Wall Street at that time.

In the past ten years, Xianglin Li has been called "the actuary who destroyed Wall Street" by the media.

After 2000, when the Internet bubble burst and house prices rose, American banks accumulated a large number of customer contracts with low credit rating and high risk premium, which were called subprime loans. The bank thought of a coup, that is, packaging these assets in the form of MBS and selling them to investors.

In order to prevent sub-prime loans from defaulting, Wall Street elites invented CDS according to Xianglin Li's paper to guarantee CDO's default. The so-called CDO was later packaged into mortgage securities by Wall Street elites and sold to investors further downstream. CDO has become a pure risk selling product. Later, statistics show that the CDS market is 48 times larger than the subprime mortgage market, which is equivalent to 4 times the GDP of the United States.

With CDS, we provide insurance and guarantee for MBS packaged and issued by subprime mortgage. The elite on Wall Street successfully packaged these subprime loans as AAA. As a result, subprime loans expanded infinitely in the bubble.

MBS is a high-yield fat, and everyone is rushing to buy it. Lehman Brothers, which ranks fourth in the market, is the owner of boldly investing in subprime products. In the following years, banks increased loans to people with low credit and reduced the down payment ratio of mortgages. The down payment of mortgage was reduced from 30% to 10%, and then to 0 down payment.

In 2005, the Federal Reserve began to raise interest rates to curb inflation. Because of the interest rate hike, the lender could not repay the loan at first, but the bank found that the CDS products that should have been repaid could not be repaid. The storm of butterfly wings flapping in raising interest rates intensified, and the whole subprime mortgage crisis finally broke out in 2008, and Lehman Brothers went bankrupt.

Photo: 20 15 The American movie "Big Short" tells the story of several investment geniuses who saw through the bubble illusion before the American credit storm in 2007 and benefited a lot by shorting subprime CDS.

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Only eight years later, people once again saw the ghost of subprime mortgage crisis in an Internet financial storm in China.

At the end of 20 16, the overseas Chinese private debt of1146 million yuan issued by Guangdong Stock Exchange and Ant Group Zhaocaibao suddenly broke out. This case involves a wide range. However, on the side of Zhaocaibao, Qiaoxing Private Debt and Ant Group broke through the qualified investor system of private debt issuance at that time, that is, Guangdong Stock Exchange required investors to have a market value of financial assets under their own names of more than 3 million yuan; The total number of private placement bond investors in each period shall not exceed 200.

Qiaoxing's junk debt was indiscriminately sold to tens of thousands of Alipay users at the threshold of 100 yuan through the treasure platform. However, individuals who bought privately-raised debt products transferred their creditor's rights on Zhaocaibao in order to realize it, resulting in a substantial "personal loan" behavior. At that time, Zheshang Property Insurance provided guarantee for Qiaoxing Company, and Zhongan Insurance provided insurance for investors of Zhaocaibao's "personal loan".

After the thunderstorm, this aboveboard scandal of internet financial innovation was exposed one after another, involving wrangling between insurance companies. The most ridiculous thing is that people find the ghost of the subprime mortgage crisis reappearing. Investors in private debt and personal loans played the role of Lehman Brothers and individual investors in the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States, and Zhongan Insurance played the role of CDS.

The so-called Internet financial innovation, in which the Internet platform breaks through the qualified investor system, is just a thin layer of net paper, which is broken at once. At that time, Internet financial platforms such as P2P cooperated with various financial exchanges a dime a dozen, and Ant Group just went astray blindly. After this incident, the supervision stopped the cooperation between the Internet platform and the Gold Exchange.

The birth of every financial supervision system is probably a summary of historical lessons. In June 5438 +2020 10, Ma Boss of Ant Group criticized the Basel Accord as a financial system for the elderly. It should be considered that after 2008, the Basel Accord increased liquidity and leverage requirements, which is just a lesson learned from the subprime mortgage crisis. The United States, the birthplace of QFII system in history, was also introduced at the end of the Great Depression.

On the eve of the 1929 US stock market crash, the stock market "financing disk", which is famous for leveraged financing, is also known as financial innovation. The leverage ratio of financing is 4 times, 10 times, attracting civilians to invest in the stock market on a large scale. Then, just after the Federal Reserve once raised the lending rate from 5% to 6%, it triggered the butterfly effect. It is this kind of behavior that various financial institutions require leveraged individuals to add margin, which makes it unbearable for people with high leverage and debt, and the stock market collapses on a large scale.

The Qualified Investor System was introduced against the background that the stock market crash caused investors' economic loss and confidence loss during the Great Depression. Since 2004, China has gradually improved the QFII system. After 20 13, many so-called financial innovations in the field of internet finance are just hitchhiking on the internet, shouting to break the laws and regulations that have brought tragedy, and the result is often falling into another trap.

Ah Q was slapped by Master Zhao who dared not follow his surname Zhao. Later, he cut his braid and wanted to pick on GM, but he was finally accused of ZF.

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At the beginning of 20 17, the internet finance situation in China took a turn for the worse. The government work report changed the positive or moderate expression of "encouraging" and "standardizing" in the previous two years, and put forward "being highly alert to accumulated risks such as Internet finance".

In April this year, the online lending platform suspended campus loans. It was just another tragedy seven years ago. Seven years ago, the credit card business of college students in major banks in China also encountered such a lesson. Because of the low credit level, weak repayment ability and poor self-control of consumption, there was chaos, which was later stopped by the China Banking Regulatory Commission.

The most iconic layout of financial supervision this year was the Fifth National Financial Work Conference held in July, which established the principle that "all financial businesses should be regulated".

This is the biggest thing. After experiencing the P2P storm, the loss of equity crowdfunding and the deception of various pseudo-innovations in Internet financing, people made up their minds that all financial activities should be closely supervised. From then on, all financial innovations must be licensed.

After the end of June, the data disclosed by Ant Group showed that the total loan balance of the two Chongqing small loan companies behind the lending and expenditure had reached about 265.2 billion yuan, and the total lending scale exceeded 300 billion yuan. The registered capital of two small loan companies is 3 billion yuan, and the leverage ratio of more than 40 ABS financings is more than 100 times. This is 2.3 times the leverage ratio required by Chongqing small loan company at that time, which is already higher than the sky. Later, under the supervision order of the CBRC, the number of ABS issued was limited to five.

In the P2P industry, although the loss of 20 17 has not been finalized. However, because P2P investors are so miserable, some industry scholars call for the establishment of a qualified investor system in P2P industry. Some local regulators require P2P platforms to increase paid-in registered capital. ...

A year later, the nodes implementing P2P license system were postponed, and the market suddenly collapsed at the end of June 2065438+2008, and thousands of P2P broke out. Only then did people discover that P2P is not a problem of qualified investors, but a common fraud problem in its own business model and industry. On the contrary, the paid-in registered capital has become a reminder. Many platforms are just waiting for licensing, struggling to support the inflated bad debts until expectations fail, they are discouraged and run away.

A month before this, China Liu He, Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China said at a meeting that doing business should have the principal, borrowing money should be repaid, investment should take risks, and doing bad things should pay the price, which made the thinking of financial supervision clearer. Later, this sentence was summed up as: lending must have capital, and storage must have reserves.

Just like the joke told by "Zhao Benshan" and "Song Dandan": What, you think I won't know you if you change your vest?

However, the supervision of innovative finance is often lagging behind. After 20 18, the capital of ant small loan and ant Shangcheng small loan has expanded to1600 million yuan, and according to the five ABS financing ceilings, it can only reach 80 billion yuan. However, the ant group gave birth to the joint loan. In the first half of 2020, 43 billion yuan of self-owned funds were used to incite nearly10.8 trillion bank funds to lend.

In the movie Sword Rain, "Wang Xueyin" said to "Dai Li people": "If you want to juggle, you can juggle, and if you want to practice martial arts, you can practice martial arts. It's a miracle that you've been hanging out and living to this day.

Photo: stills of the movie "Sword Rain"

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Now, as we all know,165438+1the opinion draft of the Measures for the Supervision of Small Loans on the Internet was not released hastily after Ma Yun 10/24.

But it has been explored by Ant Group for many years with the "innovation" of financial business. The emergence of Alipay allows China to issue third-party payment licenses, and also allows payment institutions to pay reserve funds; The sudden thunder of Zhaocaibao blocked the way for the Gold Exchange to avoid the risk transfer of the QFII system to the general public on the Internet. The high leverage of borrowing and spending prompted the introduction of small loan supervision measures.

In this regard, the regulatory thinking has never been so clear. 10 year 10 On October 24th, after Ma Yun spoke for the financial technology camp represented by Ant Group at the Bund Financial Summit, the regulatory authorities began to demand that "similar businesses and similar entities be treated equally".

On the contrary, the same business, different regulatory treatment, is the loophole that Ant Group started in the past ten years. For example, in advertising, business development and financial consumer protection, banks are mostly timid and respectful; Most financial technologies burn a lot of money and expand recklessly. Many BigTech emphasize the scientific and technological attributes and de-financialization. The move itself is to avoid the attention of public opinion and supervision. If similar businesses and similar entities are treated equally, it means that as long as they are involved in loan business, they must also comply with the requirements of leverage ratio and liquidity. This is the fairness and consistency of supervision, and it is also a rule to prevent regulatory arbitrage.

Ant Group used ABS to play the leverage ratio to 100 times. The worst thing is not the leverage ratio, but that ABS has passed on all the bad debt risks that should have been borne by the lending institution's own capital to other investors. Whoever subscribes for ABS will take the risk and be possessed by the ghost of subprime mortgage.

From "all financial activities must be supervised" to "doing business with principal" to "treating similar businesses and similar subjects equally", it can be seen that the supervision thinking is clear and the supervision means are advanced. The regulatory arbitrage space of the Internet financial platform will be greatly reduced and return to the "pawnshop" team.

165438+1On October 4th, Ant Group was suspended from listing A shares and H shares. According to the supervision method of online small loans, it will take off the vest of "technology". The market speculates that if Ant Group goes public again, its market value is expected to shrink by 25%-50%, and the highest possible drop is 1 trillion yuan.

After 20 15, it is useless for financial enterprises to change their names from "financial services" to "financial technology" and then to "mathematics". Now returning to the essence of business, they have to eat regular coarse grains and drink regulated bitter tea like banks.

When Lei Man was in junior high school, the school had a wonderful rule that people who studied better were arranged in a classroom for examination, and they were strictly supervised and were not allowed to cheat. Not good, put it in another classroom for exams, copy books and cheat, and the teacher turned a blind eye and didn't pay much attention.

Later, I realized that those who study well are related to the "institutional guarantee" of the school's style of study and the results of the senior high school entrance examination. They can't cheat, they must do a good job. No matter those people, let them scamper and run wild, as long as they don't make a big moth, the school won't clean him up and let them swell. However, if you copy the book and get the first place in a grade, you still have to teach clever people: "Look at Lao Zi's awesome" and "Come on, I'll teach you how to do this problem", and the school will definitely clean you up.