Huaxia Finance: Create an investment product that makes young people addicted

[51CTO.com original article] If someone asked what "Huaxia Finance" is at this time last year, many people might not be able to answer. But in 2016, many people born in the 80s and 90s can see the Huaxia Finance APP icon on their phones. Just in November, the transaction volume of Huaxia Finance's trading platform has exceeded 100 million yuan, with more than 20,000 investment users, and 7,000 to 8,000 users active on the APP platform every day. As an "Internet financial upstart" that was only established in November 2015 and officially launched online promotion in June 2016, such a "wild growth" speed is amazing.

In fact, we can get a glimpse of the reasons for Huaxia Finance's booming vitality from Duan Nian, the CEO of Huaxia Finance. Duan Nian responded to the reporter's questions quickly, but his tone and expression were not exaggerated, his logic was meticulous and his words were accurate. This calmness that the reporter felt during the conversation also revealed his strong confidence in the gradual development of the financial market.

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Duan Nian, CEO of Huaxia Finance

Reliable + fun to attract young fans

Duan Nian told reporters that Huaxia, which is derived from the homonym of "Huaxia", is an Internet financial management platform under Huaxia Xincai. From the beginning, Huaxia has been targeting young people born in the 1980s and 1990s. How to attract this group of people? Huaxia Finance's killer feature is direct and simple: reliable + fun.

He explained that "reliability" is one of the core points that investors are extremely concerned about. Huaxia Finance's reliability mainly includes two aspects: reliable business model and reliable platform. The business model refers to the reliability of assets. Huaxia Finance relies on Huaxia Credit to provide investors with high-quality assets and excludes projects with low asset quality and high risks from the beginning. The reliability of the platform refers to the strong availability and high security of the Internet financial management platform, which can quickly solve users' problems and make users feel trustful.

As for "fun", it is easier to understand. Unlike the traditional post-60s generation who take investment seriously, the post-80s and post-90s generation prefer to do interesting things. Even for investment and financial management, how to make it lively and interesting will attract the favor of the post-80s and post-90s generation. Duan Nian gave an example: Huaxia Finance has a "fishing shrimp" activity, where users can get coupons by fishing shrimp. This activity is very popular among young people. The current high daily activity rate of Huaxia APP also directly proves the success of Huaxia's "fun" concept.

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Find the balance between risk control and service

The reporter learned that among Huaxia Finance's businesses, 80% of the share belongs to personal credit services, mainly targeting the 2C market. In fact, in 2016, the controversy over personal credit has been quite polarized. The previous exposure of the "naked loan" incident involving female college students has made the personal credit market precarious. So how does Duan Nian view the current situation and development prospects of personal credit?

Duan Nian first answered this question from the current situation of personal credit in China. He believes that the existing traditional financial institutions such as banks in China are willing to provide loan services to large enterprises for risk and profit considerations, and personal loans are mainly car loans and mortgages. For loans for personal consumption, the main product is credit cards.

However, the reality is that the financial services currently provided by domestic banks cannot well meet the capital needs of enterprises, especially small and micro enterprises, as well as the rapidly expanding urban white-collar population. The difficulty of small and micro enterprises in obtaining loans is already well known. In the field of personal consumer credit, the domestic credit card coverage rate is not high, and white-collar workers with consumer needs may not be able to apply for the required credit line. "Banks will set many thresholds for loan services for risk control, which will also exclude many people who really have credit needs and repayment capabilities. Finance needs to find a balance between risk and service, so there is a huge space for supplementation here." Duan Nian pointed out.

In this context, as consumer behavior changes, the demand for credit for ordinary people has become stronger and stronger. Allowing more people to enjoy credit services flexibly and make life better through loans and investments is the value of financial services and also Huaxia Finance's view on market segmentation. "There is no doubt that this is a very promising market segment, and the rapid growth of Huaxia Finance also proves this."

It is a supplement rather than a subversion

At the same time, Duan Nian also frankly admitted that the current domestic social credit system is still very imperfect, and many people lack a serious understanding of personal credit and have no idea of ​​the consequences of defaulting on loans. It is these two current situations that have led to the emergence of the "naked loan" phenomenon. Unlike the public opinion that is one-sidedly criticizing the "naked loan" students, he pointed out that the financial institutions themselves need to bear certain responsibilities for lending to people who clearly have no financial repayment ability.

When talking about the relationship between Huaxia Finance's personal credit services and the loan services provided by traditional banks, Duan Nian said that the personal credit services provided by Internet finance will never be a disruptor of the financial market, but an effective supplement to traditional loan services. "Full free competition in the market will definitely lead to the decentralization of services." He gave an example: different groups of people have different financial needs, such as students, white-collar workers who have just started working, entrepreneurs who have started from scratch, newly established families of three, etc. The needs of each group of people have unique characteristics of this age group. "Crowds and scenarios are two different dimensions of services. At present, Huaxia Finance is mainly positioned in the category of young people."

Duan Nian revealed that Huaxia Finance is currently trying to provide personal credit services to white-collar workers in second- and third-tier cities.

See the world from a different perspective

Before the interview with Duan Nian, the reporter learned that Duan Nian had a very rich career experience. As a technical expert, he worked in technology companies such as Huawei and Google after graduation, and later gradually changed his job to become a manager. Duan Nian told the reporter that this change was not intentional. When he just graduated from graduate school, he was like a "superman", satisfied with shuttling between various company customer sites to solve problems. But soon he got tired of it. Why were there more and more problems and they were never solved? Why couldn't he lead a good team to solve the problem fundamentally?

After he had this idea, he gradually began to broaden his perspective, not only focusing on the technology itself, but also gradually getting involved in product development and operation management. He found that being limited to any one of the positions of technology, product, and management was one-sided and could not solve the fundamental problem. Only by standing from the perspective of a manager and looking down on the overall situation from a high position could he find the most appropriate solution. Thus, his career as a manager officially began.

"The biggest challenge of the role change is to adjust your perspective." Duan Nian said that traditional technicians often focus on technical architecture and development processes. After becoming a manager, he found that CEOs need to balance the risks brought by the change of technical architecture and make decisions based on a comprehensive consideration of multiple factors. In addition, CEOs also need to consider cooperation with other companies, make plans in terms of industry trends and development directions, and make flexible adjustments based on changes.

All experiences are wealth

Of course, his familiarity and understanding of technology also helped him a lot in management. In May this year, when Huaxia Finance started to go online, he and his colleagues in the technical team controlled the rhythm of product upgrades and iterations very well.

"It is very important to master the rhythm when making an APP. If the frequency is too fast, the user experience may not be good enough. If the frequency is too slow, although the product is polished to a higher quality, the market opportunity may be easily lost." Duan Nian said that the control of the rhythm is based on his personal experience on the one hand and his understanding of technology on the other. "I can communicate with technical personnel in the same language to ensure that my ideas are realized as much as possible. And because I have a clear understanding of the technical architecture of the product, when collecting feedback information, I know which requirements can be realized and which requirements will change the existing architecture and should be temporarily shelved."

At the beginning of the interview, the reporter asked Duan Nian to recommend some books that he thought were more valuable. To the reporter's surprise, Duan Nian did not recommend management or technical books like most CEOs and CTOs, but enthusiastically listed a series of books for the reporter: A Brief History of Humankind, The Birth of Wealth, Since Darwin, The Panda's Thumb, The Devil's Priest, The Birth of the Modern World. He relished the essence of each book, often adding a "why" after asking a question. Just like his evaluation of himself, keep an open mind, keep learning, and finally deal with it in his own way. Perhaps, it is his style of doing things that is projected onto Huaxia Finance and becomes the potential driving force for its continuous growth.

[51CTO original article, please indicate the original author and source as 51CTO.com when reprinting on partner sites]