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 bulletin on consumer complaints against banks and insurance companies 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 branches in various cities and prefectures received a total of 2,639 consumer complaints from the banking sector, up 5.01% year over year; among them, 373 complaints involved other banking and financial institutions, up 258.65% year over year, 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 Cons Fin”) receive 96, 73, and 52 complaints, respectively. Although the number fell quarter over quarter, the total number of complaints against Harbin Cons Fin in the first three quarters reached 221, up 198.65% year over year, compared with 74 in the same period last year. In addition, Blue Whale Finance found that, according to disclosures, Harbin Cons Fin received 163 complaints throughout 2023, representing an increase of 340% year over year.

The company website shows that Harbin Consumer Finance is a licensed consumer finance company established with Harbin Bank as the primary sponsor, and is the 19th consumer finance company to begin operations nationwide. The company officially started operations in April 2017. After introducing Baidu’s Duxiaoman Financial strategic investment in 2019, its registered capital was increased to RMB 1.5 billion.

Tianyancha shows that Harbin Consumer Finance currently has seven shareholders. Harbin Bank Co., Ltd. is the largest shareholder with a 53% stake. Other shareholders include Duxiaoman (Chongqing) Technology Co., Ltd., Shanghai Studford Real Estate Co., Ltd., Suzhou Tongcheng Software Co., Ltd., Beijing Bosyoun Advantage Technology Development Co., Ltd., Heilongjiang Siger International Trade Co., Ltd., and Heilongjiang Xinda Auction Co., Ltd., holding 30%, 6.33%, 5%, 3.33%, 1.67%, and 0.67%, respectively.

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

As of June 30, 2022, Harbin Cons Fin’s total assets amounted to RMB 14.251 billion, up 2.62% year over year. Its loan balance was RMB 13.681 billion, up 4.92% from the beginning of the year and up 2.90% from the same period last year. Cumulatively, it has served more than 32 million times, and cumulative loan disbursements exceeded RMB 140 billion.

Of note, Tianyancha shows that the company has had shareholder equity frozen. In September 2020 and April 2021, the entire equity held by Heilongjiang Siger International Trade Co., Ltd. in Harbin Consumer Finance was frozen twice; the courts of execution were the Harbin Intermediate People’s Court and the Harbin People’s Court, respectively.

In addition, in the second half of this year, Harbin Cons Fin was listed for the first time in a business abnormality list by market supervision authorities. The reason stated was “failure to publicly disclose the annual report for the year within the time limit stipulated in Article 8 of the Interim Regulations on the Public Disclosure of Enterprise Information.” The listing date was July 1, and the decision-making authority was the Heilongjiang Provincial Administration for Market Regulation. Subsequently, Harbin Cons Fin issued an announcement disclosing that, on the 12th of that month, it completed the confirmation procedures for the previous year’s annual report on the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System, and the company had been removed from the “Business Abnormality List.” The company’s business and management were operating normally.

Furthermore, data from the Black Cat Complaint platform shows that, currently, Harbin Cons Fin has accumulated 294 complaints, and the complaint content is mostly related to debt collection.

Besides Harbin Cons Fin, the performance of Harbin Bank, the company’s largest shareholder, is also not satisfactory. According to the data, in the first half of 2022, the bank’s operating income was RMB 6.993 billion, up 14% year over year; its net profit attributable to the parent company 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 last year. Its provision coverage ratio was 174.67%, up 12.22 percentage points from the end of last 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, the bank’s three capital-related indicators all declined: core tier-one capital adequacy ratio was 8.87%, tier-one capital adequacy ratio was 10.84%, and capital adequacy ratio was 12%, each down by 0.41, 0.49, and 0.54 percentage points, respectively, compared with the end of last year.

Regarding complaints, according to the bulletin from the Heilongjiang Banking and Insurance Regulatory Bureau, in the first three quarters of 2022, Harbin Bank received 242 complaints, up 22.84% year over year. In banking consumer complaints, its complaint volume ranked third.

The official 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 is the third city commercial bank from China to list on the Hong Kong capital market, and also the first listed commercial bank in China’s northeastern region.

(责任编辑：马金露 HF120)