Mid-year Assessment of Licensed Consumer Finance: China Merchants Union Consumer Finance and Industrial Consumer Finance Shrink Balance Sheets to Control Risks, while BNP Paribas Nanjing Consumer Finance and Bank of Ningbo Consumer Finance Step in to Fill the Gap Against the Trend

As of August 27, 8 licensed consumer finance companies have disclosed their performance results for the first half of 2026. Among them, Suyin Kaiji Consumer Finance has not disclosed its revenue and net profit.

Overall, the performance of leading institutions is under pressure. In the first half of the year, China Merchants Union Finance recorded a revenue of 6.688 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 15.33%, and a net profit of 1.381 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8.18%; Industrial Consumer Finance achieved a revenue of 3.893 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 14.63%, and a net profit of 742 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 14.52%.

Jincheng Consumer Finance and BOC Consumer Finance presented completely different performance curves in the first half of 2026. Jincheng Consumer Finance fell into the dilemma of revenue growth without profit growth, with a revenue of 657 million yuan (up 16.6% year-on-year) and a net profit of only 56 million yuan (down 48.9% year-on-year). BOC Consumer Finance showed the feature of profit growth without revenue growth, with a revenue of 3.405 billion yuan (down 7.50% year-on-year) and a net profit of 299 million yuan (up 99.33% year-on-year), indicating a significant improvement in asset quality or cost control.

Nan Yin Fa Ba Consumer Finance and Ning Yin Consumer Finance are the only two licensed consumer finance companies that have disclosed their performance and achieved double growth in both revenue and net profit. In the first half of 2026, Nan Yin Fa Ba Consumer Finance realized a revenue of 3.22 billion yuan (up 17.52% year-on-year) and a net profit of 175 million yuan (up 22.38% year-on-year). Ning Yin Consumer Finance recorded a revenue of 1.792 billion yuan (up 6.29% year-on-year) and a net profit of 264 million yuan (up 5.60% year-on-year), maintaining a steady growth trend.

In terms of total assets, as of the end of June 2026, the total assets of 5 companies decreased compared with the end of 2025. During the reporting period, the total assets of China Merchants Union Finance, BOC Consumer Finance, Suyin Kaiji Consumer Finance, Industrial Consumer Finance and Ma Ma Consumer Finance were 147.355 billion yuan, 76.891 billion yuan, 65.017 billion yuan, 62.987 billion yuan and 44.076 billion yuan respectively, down 11.89%, 0.49%, 2.05%, 19.24% and 24.14% month-on-month respectively.

Among them, only the total assets of Suyin Kaiji Consumer Finance increased year-on-year, while the total assets of China Merchants Union Finance, BOC Consumer Finance, Ma Ma Consumer Finance and Industrial Consumer Finance decreased by 6.57%, 5.89%, 35.28% and 22.75% respectively compared with the end of the first half of 2025.

You Xi, Chairman of Communication Planet, believes that in the first half of 2026, licensed consumer finance companies have shown a situation of "leading players shrinking balance sheets to control risks, and second-tier players seizing opportunities against the trend". The industry has collectively shifted from scale competition to quality upgrading, with differentiation running through assets, revenue and profitability.

Regarding the full-year 2025 and first-half 2026 performance, China Merchants Union Finance has mentioned "actively reducing the overall scale" twice in a row. China Merchants Union Finance told Caijing New Media that in 2026, in the face of the impact brought by the under-pressure macro economy, profound adjustment of the development environment and the interweaving of various uncertain factors, the company took the initiative to reduce the overall scale, and focused on building low-complaint operation capabilities and core risk control capabilities.

You Xi believes that the balance sheet shrinkage such as the decline in the total asset size of China Merchants Union Finance and Ma Ma Consumer Finance confirms that the old logic of "scale means profit" that the consumer finance industry used to follow is being broken, and even scale has changed from a source of profit to a source of risk. That is to say, the three old logical premises of "high interest margin of consumer finance products", "delayed risk exposure" and "high interest rate covering high risk" have all failed at the same time. The current consumer finance industry is facing narrowing industry interest margins, concentrated maturity of historical non-performing assets, and regulatory restrictions that eliminate the "high interest rate covering high risk" model.

Although the old logic is being broken, balance sheet shrinkage represents a shift of gear rather than a recession, the new logic has not yet been verified. In You Xi's view, cases such as BOC Consumer Finance doubling its net profit by disposing of provisions all show that the path of "exchanging quality for scale" has not been truly realized, and there is no stable answer to "where the new profit will come from".

It is worth noting that the total asset size of Ning Yin Consumer Finance and Nan Yin Fa Ba Consumer Finance shows an upward trend.

In this regard, You Xi believes that these two platforms are backed by shareholder resources: Bank of Nanjing behind Nan Yin Fa Ba Consumer Finance and Bank of Ningbo behind Ning Yin Consumer Finance both provide them with low-cost funds and ready-made customer groups, which is the most solid "moat" when the industry is tightening. This also includes the path selection and risk preference of Ning Yin Consumer Finance and Nan Yin Fa Ba Consumer Finance. For example, Ning Yin Consumer Finance released more than 60 bidding announcements intensively in the first half of 2026 to systematically "make up lessons" for self-operation and business upgrading; the self-operated business of Nan Yin Fa Ba Consumer Finance accounts for nearly 90%.

Nan Yin Fa Ba Consumer Finance stated that its differentiated development positioning is "mid-end customer group, medium credit limit, medium pricing, and medium to long term".

You Xi analyzed that this is also a window period for the industry. Leading players take the initiative to shrink and leave market gaps, and the growth of second-tier platforms relies half on their own efforts and half on the "strategic retreat" of leading players. Wang Pengbo, Chief Analyst of Bocom Consulting, believes that for the consumer finance industry, the extensive customer acquisition model that used to rely on low-interest publicity to attract traffic and hidden price increases to make profits will gradually fail. Market competition has shifted from price games to the competition of compliance capabilities and risk control capabilities. The living space of non-compliant institutions will continue to narrow, and the pace of industry clearance will accelerate.

This article is from "Caijing New Media", author: Wang Boyun, editor: Jiang Shizhou, and is published with authorization from 36Kr.