Author | Wang Xiaojun

Editor | Huang Yu

The boss's act of pushing workers will not come to an end.

Recently, the current Director of WeBank, Gu Min, called on employees to 'roll it up' in an internal meeting, which trended on social media, urging employees to start work early, leave late, and make significant cuts to outsourced labor.

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of WeBank, this statement highlights WeBank's current anxiety.

When it comes to WeBank, many may not be familiar, but mentioning WeChat's 'Li Qian Tong' is almost universally recognized. It is reported that the 'Li Qian Tong' corresponds to the MMF sales services provided by WeBank. Additionally, the microloans in WeChat Pay, known as WeCredit, are also among WeBank's most well-known loan services.

The recent display of anxiety is mainly because the years of growth for WeBank have come to a halt, and this year marks the first time for a decline in performance.

According to the quarterly report released by WeBank, in the first three quarters of this year, WeBank achieved a revenue of 29.01 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 2.14%, marking the first decline in revenue since WeBank's establishment.

Such a decline naturally causes anxiety for WeBank, which has experienced rapid growth over the past few years. Moreover, the current decline is just one aspect of the growth, and the more concerning factor is the expectations for the future.

In terms of user scale, it is tightly bound to WeChat Pay. Currently, WeChat has become a universal application, and the user scale is already approaching its ceiling, making growth difficult; this also means that the traffic WeBank receives from Tencent is reaching its peak.

In recent years, there has been a noticeable intention from both parties to 'unbind'.

Outside of Tencent's ecosystem, such as WeChat and QQ, WeBank has started to look for new business growth points, launching WeBank Wallet and several apps.

On Tencent's side, large-scale Shareholding has begun. In the first half of this year, Tencent reduced its holdings in WeBank by 84.54 million shares, decreasing its stake by approximately 6.7%. Earlier, Tencent had already initiated cooperation with Financial Institutions like China Everbright Bank.

The departures from both sides present significant challenges for WeBank in the future.

Additionally, during these years of rapid growth at WeBank, various issues related to that growth have gradually emerged.

In September, WeBank was fined 13.87 million yuan for violating account management regulations, failing to fulfill customer identity verification obligations as required, not properly storing customer identity data and transaction records, failing to submit large transaction reports or suspicious transaction reports as required, and conducting transactions with unidentified customers.

This is a rare large fine in the Industry, which highlights the severity of WeBank's issues, and this is not the first time WeBank has been penalized.

Just a year ago, WeBank was fined 1.2 million yuan due to inadequate review of the use of down payment funds for auto loans and additional consumer loan purposes, as well as lax review of the loan amounts for Commercial Vehicles; in June 2022, WeBank was also fined 0.4 million yuan by regulators for inadequate post-loan management of rental loans.

Additionally, WeBank's non-performing loan ratio has shown a yearly increasing trend, reaching 1.65% by the end of June, significantly up by 0.19 percentage points compared to the beginning of the year. Among the listed Banks, only the Bank Of Xi'An had a greater increase than WeBank.

Despite current numerous concerns, WeBank still experienced a decade of Gold era.

Founded in 2014 as WeChat Pay began to rise, Tencent is the lead investor and also WeBank's largest single Shareholder, holding a 32.73% controlling stake, which has provided important support for WeBank in marketing channels, risk control, and IT technology development. Liyue Group and Baiyiyuan each hold 15.58%.

Perhaps because of its relationship with Tencent, there is also a side-profile penguin in WeBank's logo. After its establishment, WeBank became the country's first private bank and Internet bank, also serving as a testbed for Financial Institutions.

In the years following its establishment, WeBank hitched a ride on the fast-growing WeChat, experiencing soaring growth during the rapid expansion of WeChat up to 2022, with its performance maintaining high growth rates between 30% and 50% for several consecutive years.

Even in the context of slowing economic growth in 2023, it has shown relatively strong profitability. The 2023 annual report shows that WeBank recorded revenue of 39.361 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.3%; net income of 10.815 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21.02%.

It is worth mentioning that according to data from the National Financial Supervision Administration, in 2023, national private banks achieved a total net income of 20.4 billion yuan. This means that WeBank accounts for half of the profits in the entire industry, showing strong profitability. Moreover, by the end of 2023, WeBank had nearly 0.4 billion effective individual customers.

As a bank, its main business is to absorb deposits and issue loans. In terms of business scale, WeBank also surpasses many private banks. By the end of 2023, WeBank's total loans had reached 414.5 billion yuan, and its deposit scale had also reached 374.3 billion yuan.

However, the golden era has passed, and how to navigate the current cycle is something that management needs to reflect on. It must be recognized that ineffective 'inner competition' is unlikely to lead to performance growth, only innovation can.

For WeBank, the current challenge is how to quickly adjust expectations after rapid growth and find a new path for high-quality and stable growth.