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 CBIRC (Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission) released a notification on consumer complaints related to banking and insurance for the first three quarters of 2022. According to the data, in the first three quarters of 2022, the Heilongjiang CBIRC and its local (municipal) banking and insurance regulatory sub-branches together received 2,639 consumer complaints from the banking industry, representing a year-on-year increase of 5.01%. Among them, other banking financial institutions accounted for 373 cases, up 258.65% year on year, and making up 14.14% of total banking industry complaints.

Based on the data, this year’s first, second, and third quarters saw Harbin Consumer Finance (hereinafter referred to as “Harbin Xiamin”) record complaint volumes of 96, 73, and 52, respectively. Although there was a quarter-on-quarter decline, in the first three quarters, Harbin Xiamin’s total complaint volume reached 221, up 198.65% year on year; in the same period last year, it was 74 cases. In addition, Caijing Blue Whale found that, according to disclosures, Harbin Xiamin’s total complaint volume for the full year of last year was 163, up 340% year on year.

The website shows that Harbin Consumer Finance is a licensed consumer finance company established nationwide as the 19th to open, initiated by Harbin Bank as the primary contributor. The company officially opened in April 2017. In 2019, after introducing Baidu’s Xiaoman Finance as a strategic investor, 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%. Other shareholders include Xiaoman (Chongqing) Technology Co., Ltd., Shanghai Sturford Property Development Co., Ltd., Suzhou Tongcheng Software Co., Ltd., Beijing Bosun Advantage Technology Development Co., Ltd., Heilongjiang Saig International Trading Co., Ltd., and Heilongjiang Xinda Auction Co., Ltd., holding 30%, 6.33%, 5%, 3.33%, 1.67%, and 0.67%, respectively.

Harbin Xiamin has not published 2022 performance information on its website, but as the main sponsor, Harbin Bank’s interim report this year disclosed relevant data on Harbin Xiamin in 2022.

As of June 30, 2022, Harbin Xiamin’s total assets were RMB 14.25B, up 2.62% year on year. Its loan balance was RMB 13.68B, up 4.92% from the beginning of the year and up 2.90% from the same period last year. The company had served more than 32 million customer instances in total, with total loan disbursements exceeding RMB 140 billion.

Worth noting is that Tianyancha shows that the company has had shareholder equity frozen. In September 2020 and April 2021, all of the equity held by Heilongjiang Saig International Trading Co., Ltd. in Harbin Consumer Finance was frozen twice. The courts of enforcement 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 Xiamin was listed for the first time in the business abnormality list by market regulation authorities. The reason given was “failure to publish the annual report within the deadline stipulated in Article 8 of the Interim Provisions on the Public Disclosure of Enterprise Information.” The listing date was July 1, and the authority that made the decision was the Heilongjiang Provincial Administration for Market Regulation. Subsequently, Harbin Xiamin issued an announcement disclosing that, on the 12th of that month, it had completed the confirmation procedures for the previous year’s annual report in the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System. The company has been removed from the “business abnormality list,” and its operations and management are normal.

Also, data from the platform Black Cat Complaints shows that, at present, Harbin Xiamin’s cumulative complaint volume is 294 cases, with complaint content mostly related to collections.

Beyond Harbin Xiamin, the performance of Harbin Bank, the company’s largest shareholder, is also not ideal. The data shows that in the first half of 2022, the bank’s operating revenue was RMB 6.99B, up 14% year on year. Its net profit attributable to the parent company was RMB 495 million, down 41.89% year on 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. The provision 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. Meanwhile, all three indicators of its capital position declined: core tier-one capital adequacy ratio was 8.87%, tier-one capital adequacy ratio was 10.84%, and capital adequacy ratio was 12%, down by 0.41, 0.49, and 0.54 percentage points, respectively, from the end of the previous year.

Regarding complaints, according to the Heilongjiang CBIRC’s notification, in the first three quarters of 2022, Harbin Bank recorded 242 complaint cases, up 22.84% year on year. Its complaint volume ranked third among banking industry consumer complaints.

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

(Editor: Ma Jinlu HF120)