The policy of promoting consumption and benefiting the people is steadily being implemented. Recently, some commercial banks have released the "Financial Interest Subsidy Agreement for Credit Card Account Installment Payment Business", further implementing the deployment requirements of the "Notice on Optimizing the Implementation of Financial Interest Subsidy Policies for Personal Consumption Loans" issued by the Ministry of Finance and three other departments in January this year. Specifically, after the cardholder confirms the above terms, the bill installment, free installment, consumption installment, etc. that they handle and comply with the relevant policy regulations can enjoy the interest subsidy policy, with an annual interest subsidy ratio of 1 percentage point.
Consumption is the fundamental force of economic growth, and one effective way to expand consumer demand is to provide high-quality consumer supply. Optimizing fiscal interest subsidy policies can reduce financial expenditure costs for consumers. Since the beginning of this year, various regions and departments across the country have implemented a special action to boost consumption and promote the improvement of the consumer market. The latest data released by the National Bureau of Statistics shows that the total retail sales of consumer goods in the first quarter of this year reached nearly 13 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.4%, with a growth rate 0.7 percentage points faster than the fourth quarter of last year.
Faced with a good start, the next step is to do a good job and ensure that consumer loan policies for the benefit of the people are fully implemented and effective. Firstly, ensure that the policies of consumer loans benefiting the people are familiar and mastered by the staff of frontline implementing agencies. At present, relevant departments have optimized the personal consumption loan interest subsidy policy, including credit card bill installment business in the scope of interest subsidy, and canceling the restrictions on the consumption field in the original policy. It can be said that "anyone who consumes can enjoy interest subsidy". The handling financial institutions have also simplified the loan subsidy process, automatically identifying and calculating the subsidy amount, and directly deducting the subsidy funds when collecting interest. However, some consumers still have doubts about how financial institutions calculate the amount of interest subsidies? What if there is a dispute between the two regarding the determination of specific consumer matters? To this end, frontline executing agencies should ensure smooth consultation channels and provide business training for both online and offline staff, in order to minimize disputes caused by information asymmetry and make consumer loan policies easy to obtain and worry free.
Secondly, we should enhance the willingness of frontline staff to effectively implement policies that benefit the people, and avoid negative coping phenomena such as "if consumers don't ask, I won't say" and "it's better to do less than more". The effective implementation of consumer loan policies for the benefit of the people requires the consolidation of many details. According to the current implementation regulations of multiple commercial banks, the prerequisite for consumers to enjoy loan interest subsidies is to sign a supplementary agreement with financial institutions, and each credit card must be signed separately. That is to say, if consumers do not understand this regulation and only sign a supplementary agreement with one credit card, but use another credit card to consume, they may not be able to enjoy the discount policy. To alleviate information asymmetry and improve the effectiveness of policy implementation, it is not enough to rely solely on financial institutions issuing announcements online or setting up policy introduction manuals at offline branches to "everything is fine". Instead, it is necessary to start with operational details and inform consumers of the above regulations as much as possible in advance, such as automatically popping up relevant prompts when consumers log in to mobile banking.
Finally, consumers should also apply for loan interest subsidies truthfully and beware of fraudulent activities, so as not to let the real money of the policy of benefiting the people fall into the hands of criminals. On the one hand, consumers should avoid using their brains to obtain subsidies. Once financial institutions discover fraudulent behavior such as false consumption, as well as illegal and irregular activities where funds flow into non consumption areas or relevant national policies and regulations, interest subsidies will not be granted, and the already issued interest subsidy funds will be deducted or recovered. On the other hand, consumers should not easily trust the so-called "agency interest subsidy" business of third-party intermediaries. Legitimate financial institutions will not entrust any third party to handle related business, nor will they charge any additional fees. (Source: Economic Daily, Author: Guo Ziyuan)
(Editor in charge: Zang Mengya)
