When a 1000 trillion yuan debt suddenly appeared in the credit card repayment section of his UnionPay app, Mr. Qin, a small business owner from Zhongshan, Guangdong, felt nothing but absurdity and despair.
This phantom debt, coupled with previously unexplained "overdue" records on his credit report, dragged his long-established garment factory into a liquidity crisis.
The root of all these troubles traces back to the "Le Huijin" quasi-credit card he obtained from China Everbright Bank in 2015. What appeared to be a random system glitch has exposed numerous underlying issues with this financial innovation product.
China Everbright Bank has now discontinued new applications for the "Le Huijin" product, but will existing cardholders face new troubles?
The ordeal began when Mr. Qin applied for loans to expand his garment factory in 2022, only to have his applications repeatedly rejected. He later discovered his credit report showed consecutive "1" and "2" markers for 11 months.
According to the central bank's credit report, his "Le Huijin" card repayment records were marked with "1" starting August 2021, and entirely with "2" from September 2021 to July 2022. In credit assessment, these markers indicate overdue payments of 1-30 days and 31-60 days respectively, directly causing his loan applications to fail.
Mr. Qin immediately contacted China Everbright Bank, which claimed the "1" and "2" markers merely indicated normal overdraft duration rather than actual overdue payments, and shouldn't affect his credit.
After months of dispute resolution, China Everbright Bank finally removed the abnormal credit records in October 2022. However, when Mr. Qin prepared to reapply for loans, his UnionPay app showed an outstanding debt of 1000 trillion yuan on his "Le Huijin" card.
This absurd figure, which only appeared on third-party platforms without any trace in the bank's system, persisted for 13 months until December 2023, during which his loan applications continued to be rejected.
Regarding this "phantom debt," China Everbright Bank blamed "display errors by third-party platforms," while UnionPay claimed the data originated from the bank, resulting in mutual finger-pointing.
Mr. Qin's garment factory has since fallen into dire straits due to prolonged financing obstacles: production line shutdowns from broken capital chains and substantial compensation claims from order defaults.
China Everbright Bank offered to compensate Mr. Qin for interest during the period marked as overdue from August 2021 to July 2022, amounting to approximately 30,000 yuan, but Mr. Qin firmly rejected the offer as insufficient to cover his business and reputation losses.
Mr. Qin's experience reflects more than just an isolated system failure—it reveals fundamental flaws in China Everbright Bank's "Le Huijin" product throughout its lifecycle, from launch to discontinuation.
The initial launch of Le Huijin held positive intentions. In September 2012, China Everbright Bank introduced this innovative product targeting individuals with large short-term loan needs, featuring a "borrow and repay at will, settle within 60 days" model to address emergency funding needs for individuals and small businesses.
Le Huijin once gained popularity among small business owners and became an important component of China Everbright Bank's inclusive finance strategy. Though specific operational data wasn't disclosed in annual reports, the inclusive finance segment repeatedly mentioned "innovative short-term credit products" and "optimized financing services for small businesses" between 2012-2022, confirming its differentiated competitive value.
However, Le Huijin contained significant risks in its design and operation details. Industry analysts note the core problem was ambiguous credit reporting rules and insufficient disclosure—China Everbright Bank failed to clearly explain the special meaning of "1" and "2" markers to customers and didn't establish interpretation consensus with other financial institutions.
These vulnerabilities ultimately led to the product's discontinuation. In February 2023, China Everbright Bank announced it would stop issuing "Le Huijin" cards due to "product strategy adjustments," though user complaints and detail flaws weren't explicitly mentioned.
The rise and fall of Le Huijin serves as a warning to the financial industry: the core of financial innovation lies not only in model breakthroughs but more importantly in detail refinement.
Financial innovation must adhere to "safety" and "transparency." When banks launch new products, they need to establish comprehensive risk assessment mechanisms, anticipate and resolve detail issues in advance, and fulfill core obligations like rule disclosure and data security, especially for products targeting small businesses.
Though Le Huijin has been discontinued, existing users continue to seek redress, with numerous similar complaints about credit misinterpretation appearing on platforms like Black Cat Complaint and Douyin. For China Everbright Bank, properly addressing user demands and strengthening innovation details is urgently needed; for the entire industry, only by solidifying details and controlling risks can financial innovation truly serve the real economy and allow financial resources to precisely nourish small business growth.
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