How Can Investors Avoid Traps ?

In recent years,a new vocabulary has appeared in the Government Work Report many times.It is “Internet Finance” that has both Internet genes and finance genes.It is a new financial business model that the traditional financial institutions and Internet companies use Internet technology and information-communication technology to realize financial intermediation,payment,investment and information intermediary services.P2 P lending is a typical format of the Internet finance.As of the end of September 2017,5929 P2 P lending platforms have been developed in China,and attract many social investors to invest.Frequent problems in the context of rapid development have also attracted domestic and foreign scholars and regulators' concern and discussion.In the process of rapid expansion of the P2 P lending industry,some platforms have ceased operations,closed down or even absconded with money.At the same time,new platforms have been established.Along with the rapid development of the industry,driven by regulatory arbitrage,many internet financial institutions intentionally blur information rather than mitigate information asymmetry when innovating products.In this way,the high wall of information has been built between the P2 P platforms and investors,so that investor rights can't be effectively guaranteed.In addition,speculative borrowers also test the platform's ability to control risk.How to effectively screen the quality of platforms has become the primary issue faced by domestic investors in making investment decisions.At the same time,the statistics of domestic third-party platforms show that the most concerned content of domestic investors is the security and professionalism of the platform in 2017.Therefore,“platform risk identification” is a research topic with practical significance.This paper mainly uses methods of empirical research and analysis.Based on the macro analysis of industry development and the micro-understanding of platform risk,this paper combined with the “1+3” supervision system of P2 P lending industry,inte grating the research ideas of predecessors in the fields of registered capital system,organizational behavior,financial corporate culture,etc.Based on the platform strength,risk protection model,listing characteristics,company organization characteristics and information disclosure level,the relevant research hypotheses were set as the entry points.Logistic Regression was used to analyze the data of 911 sample platforms of WDZJ,and then the key factors of platform-risk identification analysis were obtained.With reference to the empirical results,this paper provides suggestions to investors,regulators and the development of the platform itself,including:(1)For investors,the following important features of the platform should be grasped: a large number of platform qualifications,bidding guarantees based on a financing guarantee company model,a reasonable rate of return,a moderate investment term,a high level of professionalism in the senior management team,the rich financial enterprise culture,and the high level of information disclosure.The characteristics of the above indicators can be used as abasic “sweeping” indicator to avoid investment losses due to platform risks.(2)For the P2 P lending platform,the formation of the executive team is very important,and the professional background and academic background should be combined.At the same time,the management should actively develop the layout for the company,focusing on both internal and external developments.Internally,the company must constantly improve the risk control mechanism and focus on cultivating the culture of Internet finance;externally,the company can enhance the platform's strength through diversified and group operations,and at the same time improve the transparency of platform operations.(3)For the supervisor,they should continue to promote the information disclosure system of the P2 P lending market on the basis of the “1+3” regulatory system,further improve the information disclosure dimension,and focus on improving the quality of information disclosure.Driven by the wave of the Internet Finance,the P2 P lending market,which is one of the direct channels for social financing,is helpful to constitute Chinese multi-level capital market,and provide financial services to the community and small-micro enterprises,help the realization of inclusive finance.