Recent reports show that bank employees in cities like Guangzhou, Changsha, and Nanjing have been initiating a movement on social media platforms called “mutual exchange of consumer loans,” where they help each other process loans from each other’s banks to meet performance targets. Under the high-pressure system of “weekly assessment of tasks and deductions for failure,” frontline employees have been expressing dissatisfaction. Some scholars have criticized this “loaning for the sake of meeting targets” behavior, stating that it not only distorts the essence of finance but also may sow the seeds of systemic credit risks in the future.
On platforms such as Xiaohongshu, Douyin, and WeChat video accounts, numerous posts with titles like “Local bank employees, mutual exchange of consumer loans” and captions such as “helping each other test credit limits” and “mutual trust exchange” have been appearing extensively in cities like Guangzhou, Changsha, and Nanjing. These posts indicate that employees are attempting to achieve their respective bank’s business targets by mutually applying for loans from each other.
Miss Li, who works at a rural commercial bank in Henan, told reporters that while her bank only requires customers to “test credit limits” rather than withdraw funds, she still needs to complete at least two tasks per month and is assessed weekly. She expressed, “It’s too harsh now. If you can’t complete it in a week, they deduct hundreds of yuan, and if it continues for several weeks, it adds up to thousands. Who can bear this?” She mentioned that as a teller, she is also required to push consumer loans, and if she can’t meet the target, she has to rely on friends and relatives for help because “the bank doesn’t care how you complete it, they just want the tasks to be fulfilled.”
Huang Rui, a customer manager in Nanjing, mentioned that their bank has to complete tasks for “actual withdrawals” of consumer loans. He stated, “Many people simply don’t want to take out loans, so I can only exchange with colleagues and then cover the interest myself. Now this industry is becoming more like a pyramid scheme, isn’t this deception?”
Several bank employees have revealed that in situations where there is no customer demand, they resort to “loan swaps,” having friends and relatives pretend to be borrowers, or covering the interest themselves to fulfill the tasks. According to reports, an employee at a bank in North China stated that their bank requires them to meet two “active account” targets per month, even if no funds are withdrawn. Failure to meet these targets results in a performance deduction of 300 yuan per week.
Recently, there has been a surge of posts on social media platforms like Douyin about “mutual exchange of consumer loans” in banks, including topics like “Guangzhou banks swapping performance targets” and “mutual assistance in Jiangsu bank tasks.” Comments on Weibo have shown sympathy, with users saying, “People at the branches below are in a tough spot,” “they are deducted more than they earn,” and “this is really tough, we used to directly depend on performance.”
A netizen from Taiyuan, Shanxi, bluntly stated that data in various industries no longer hold reference value, raising the question of what causes these false statistics, which he believes deserves deep consideration.
Mr. Chen, a former senior bank executive in Shenzhen, disclosed that some banks turn a blind eye to employees using their own money to cover interest or provide hidden subsidies within the bank to boost performance. He explained, “At the beginning of the year, it was about loans to small and medium enterprises, then it turned into a price war, and now it’s consumer loans. If employees fail to meet targets, not only are their salaries deducted, but some even face pay cuts. Frontline workers are really struggling. Banks no longer have ‘petty cash reserves’ (banks recoup commissions from borrowers and set them aside, distributing them to some employees at year-end).”
Mr. Tang, a finance graduate from Shandong University, believes that the phenomenon of “loaning for the sake of meeting targets” has severely deviated from the essence of financial services. He pointed out that from employees loaning to each other to covering interest subsidies, it reflects institutional corruption and distorted performance assessments. He stated, “Consumer loans should serve the real economy and the needs of residents, but now it has become a number game. Many loans lack real demand support, and when customers default or repay early, the ultimate losses are borne by the bank’s own system.”
Financial scholar Li Bin (pseudonym) in Beijing highlighted that the normalization of “mutual exchange of consumer loans” reflects the economic reality of weak resident credit demand and declining consumption willingness. Against this backdrop, banks forcefully promoting consumer loans is merely a means to overdraft future demand and mask the current economic weakness. He warned that the banking system has devolved into a “tool to distort macro data,” straying from its intended function of resource allocation.
In November of last year, the People’s Bank of China used the term “internal competition” to describe the current state of the banking industry in its “China Monetary Policy Implementation Report for the Third Quarter of 2024.” It pointed out that the banking market is fiercely competitive, with loan interest rates rapidly decreasing while deposit rates remain stagnant, leading to significant deviations from the adjustment ranges of deposit and loan rates versus policy rates.
Currently, the regulatory authorities in China have not made a clear statement regarding gray operations like “mutual exchange of consumer loans.” Several industry insiders have indicated that in the context of China’s overall economic slowdown and continued weak consumer purchasing power, the assessment pressure on the banking system is unlikely to ease in the short term, leaving frontline workers trapped in a state of “struggling to survive.”