Expedition to Paris of Enterprises from the GBA | The First Listed Company of Installment E-commerce

The ongoing Paris Olympics has wrapped up all fencing competitions, with the Chinese team brimming with pity-mixed surprises. Never flinch when facing a strong rival and keep fighting until the last moment, and always learn from the falls and strive for the next rise. That's the spirit of Chinese fencers. But few people would've noticed that the supporter of the "China Sword" is actually a fin-tech firm called Lexin, which is an official partner of the Chinese fencing team. What made Lexin the official partner lies in a shared philosophy with the national team. Be it the tenacious fencers, or the courageous youngsters of the small and micro businesses, they both represent the spirit of a bright future in China's youth.

Prior to this cooperation, Lexin has already forged a special bond with sports, by cooperating with brands such as Kappa, YYsports, and XDS. You must be curious about where Lexin comes from. In 2013, Xiao Wenjie, who was then a product manager at Tencent, spotted the potential of "installment e-commerce". He decided to quit the well-paid job and started his own business, and here comes China's first installment e-commerce, Fenqile. As online shopping using payment by installment plans became popular, the monthly GMV of Fenqile mall exceeded 1 billion yuan by 2015. In 2017, Lexin went public in Nasdaq and became the first listed enterprise of installment e-commerce.

Lexin's revenue consists of 3 major segments, with loan facilitation as the main source. Loan facilitation, as the name suggested, means Lexin taking the role of a "matchmaker", providing a certain level of credit guarantee, and matching consumers with financial institutions. Loan facilitation depends heavily on "technical judgment", which Lexin puts in a lot of investment. R&D personnel accounts for over one-third of its staff, while annual R&D expense has exceeded 500 million yuan for the past 3 years.

At present, the operation scale of multiple businesses in Lexin ranks top 3 nationwide. However, its dependency on its loan facilitation is also deepening year by year. To observe the rule of prudent operation, Lexin started to reduce its scale of lending. The process is inevitably risky and painful. According to its financial statements for the first quarter of 2024, the scale of loan facilitation has registered a year-on-year decline of 4.8% and a year-on-year decline of over 35% in profit.

In addition, the rapid development of internet-facilitated loan is rife with disorder. Inducing lending and embedded selling in the advertising of loan facilitation institutions have been repeatedly flagged by the authorities. Lexin is no exception. But it quickly corrected its misbehavior and cooperated with the police in controlling the illegal collection of overdue payments. Apart from Lexin, loads of fin-tech companies also sprouted in Shenzhen. According to KPMG's 2023 Chinese Fintech CEO Survey Report, the number of surveyed fin-tech companies based in Shenzhen ranked the second nationwide.

Shenzhen, home to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and multiple leading internet companies in China, has exceptional advantages in the development of financial technology. This tech hub in China is determined to compete for the status of “global fin-tech hub” in the future. WeBank has set up its technological subsidiary in Hong Kong, as the first step for future overseas expansion. Lexin also started its business in Southeast Asia and South America. These fin-tech firms, together with the city they are rooted in, are set to bring better, faster and more inclusive financial services to the world.

出品：南财国际传播中心 21新媒体中心 创意互动中心

策划统筹：于晓娜 丁青云

内容统筹：谭婷 叶映橙

责任编辑：刘雪莹

执行统筹：黄欣然 

设计统筹：林军明

视频统筹：白宇航

监制：施诗

英文翻译&配音：李莹亮

海外运营监制: 黄燕淑

海外运营内容统筹: 黄子豪

运营支持：曾静娇

审校：魏雯静 蒋韵 黄志明