Halyk Consumer Finance's complaints in the third quarter increased nearly 200% year-on-year, while the major shareholder Harbin Bank's net profit in the first half of the year declined by over 40%.

Recently, the Heilongjiang Banking and Insurance Regulatory Bureau released a notice on consumer complaints related to banks and insurance for the first three quarters of 2022. According to the data, in the first three quarters of 2022, the Heilongjiang Banking and Insurance Regulatory Bureau and the banking and insurance regulatory sub-branches in various cities and prefectures collectively received 2,639 consumer complaints from the banking sector, up 5.01%. Among them, other financial institutions in the banking sector received 373 complaints, up 258.65%, accounting for 14.14% of total banking-sector complaints.

Based on the data, this year’s first, second, and third quarters saw Harbin Consumer Finance (hereinafter “Harbin Consumer Finance”) receive 96, 73, and 52 complaints respectively. While the number declined quarter-on-quarter, in the first three quarters combined, Harbin Consumer Finance recorded a total of 221 complaints, up 198.65%, compared with 74 in the same period last year. In addition, Blue Whale Finance found that, according to disclosures, Harbin Consumer Finance’s total complaints for all of last year were 163, representing an increase of 340% year over year.

The company website shows that Harbin Consumer Finance is a licensed consumer finance company established at the initiative of Harbin Bank as the primary investor, and it is the 19th consumer finance company to open nationwide. The company officially opened in April 2017. After Harbin Consumer Finance introduced Baidu’s Xiaoman Finance as a strategic investor in 2019, its registered capital increased to RMB 1.5 billion.

Tianyancha shows that Harbin Consumer Finance currently has seven shareholders. Harbin Bank Co., Ltd. is the largest shareholder, holding 53% of the shares. Other shareholders include Xiaoman (Chongqing) Technology Co., Ltd., Shanghai Stourford Real Estate Co., Ltd., Suzhou Tongcheng Software Co., Ltd., Beijing Bosheen Advantage Technology Development Co., Ltd., Heilongjiang Saige International Trade Co., Ltd., and Heilongjiang Xinda Auction Co., Ltd., holding 30%, 6.33%, 5%, 3.33%, 1.67%, and 0.67% respectively.

Harbin Consumer Finance has not published 2022 performance information on its website. However, as the main initiator, Harbin Bank’s interim report this year discloses related data of Harbin Consumer Finance for 2022.

As of June 30, 2022, Harbin Consumer Finance’s total assets were RMB 14.25B, up 2.62%. Its loan balance was RMB 13.68B, up 4.92% from the beginning of the year and up 2.90% year over year. The company has cumulatively served more than 32 million customers and has made cumulative lending of more than RMB 140 billion.

It is worth noting that, according to Tianyancha, the company has circumstances in which shareholders’ equity has been frozen. In September 2020 and April 2021, the company’s entire shareholdings in Harbin Consumer Finance held by Heilongjiang Saige International Trade Co., Ltd. were frozen twice. The executing courts were the Harbin Municipal Intermediate People’s Court and the Harbin Municipal People’s Court, respectively.

In addition, in the second half of this year, Harbin Consumer Finance was first included in the list of operating anomalies maintained by market regulatory authorities. The reason shown was “failure to publicly disclose annual reports within the time limit as required by Article 8 of the Interim Provisions on the Public Disclosure of Corporate Information.” The inclusion date was July 1, and the decision-making authority was the Heilongjiang Provincial Administration for Market Regulation. Subsequently, Harbin Consumer Finance issued an announcement disclosing that on the 12th of that month, it completed the confirmation procedures for the prior year’s annual report on the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System. The company has been removed from the “operating anomaly list,” and its business and management are operating normally.

Moreover, data from the Black Cat Complaints platform shows that currently Harbin Consumer Finance’s cumulative complaint volume is 294. The complaints are mostly related to debt collection.

Besides Harbin Consumer Finance, the performance of Harbin Bank, the company’s largest shareholder, is also not satisfactory. The data shows that in the first half of 2022, the bank’s operating revenue was RMB 6.99B, up 14% year over year. Its net profit attributable to shareholders was RMB 495 million, down 41.89% year over year. In terms of asset quality, as of the first half of 2022, the bank’s non-performing loan ratio was 2.95%, up 0.07 percentage points from the end of the previous year. Its allowance coverage ratio was 174.67%, up 12.22 percentage points from the end of the previous year.

As of June 30, 2022, Harbin Bank’s total assets were RMB 661.6549 billion, its total customer loans and advances were RMB 287.0476 billion, and its total customer deposits were RMB 509.5103 billion. At the same time, the bank’s three capital-related indicators all declined: core tier-one capital adequacy ratio at 8.87%, tier-one capital adequacy ratio at 10.84%, and capital adequacy ratio at 12%, down by 0.41, 0.49, and 0.54 percentage points respectively from the end of the previous year.

In terms of complaints, according to the notice from the Heilongjiang Banking and Insurance Regulatory Bureau, in the first three quarters of 2022, Harbin Bank received 242 complaints, up 22.84%. Its complaint volume ranked third among consumer complaints related to the banking sector.

The company website shows that Harbin Bank (06138.HK) was established in February 1997, headquartered in Harbin, and currently has 17 branches. On March 31, 2014, Harbin Bank was listed on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. It was the third city commercial bank in China to list on the Hong Kong capital market, and the first listed commercial bank in Northeast China.

(Editor: Ma Jinlu HF120)

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