The new consumer loan subsidy policy has unleashed a major upgrade! The duration is extended to the end of 2026, credit card installment payments are now included, with a maximum saving of 3,000 yuan per transaction... On January 20th, three government bodies—the Ministry of Finance, the People's Bank of China, and the National Financial Regulatory Administration—jointly issued a notice detailing the optimization of fiscal subsidy policies for personal consumer loans. Key adjustments include extending the policy term, broadening the scope of support, refining subsidy standards, and expanding the number of authorized institutions. Following the policy's implementation, major companies including Ant Group, JD.com, and Du Xiaoman have rapidly introduced corresponding measures.
No additional application is required, with some platforms boosting subsidies to full interest waivers. The new policy explicitly extends the implementation period of the fiscal subsidy for personal consumer loans until December 31, 2026. After this adjustment, the policy will be in effect from September 1, 2025, to December 31, 2026. A significant highlight is the expansion of the support scope. The new policy not only includes credit card bill installment services for the first time, applying an annual subsidy rate of 1 percentage point, thereby filling a previous gap in credit card consumer credit policy, but it also removes restrictive clauses concerning specific consumption sectors from the original policy. This means that during the policy period, residents using personal consumer loans from authorized institutions for consumption across various sectors, as well as newly initiated credit card bill installments, can enjoy subsidies after the institutions verify the authenticity and compliance of the transactions.
Shortly after the policy took effect, several consumer finance companies and e-commerce platforms have already taken action. As one of the first 23 authorized institutions, a representative from Ant Consumer Finance stated that since the policy's initial implementation in September of last year, the company has fully utilized the policy to increase credit issuance and continuously optimize its financial products and services. Primarily through Huabei installments, it provides national subsidy services to consumers, combining "policy subsidies + financial support + merchant discounts," and collaborating with e-commerce platforms and brand merchants to offer interest waivers to consumers on top of the national 1% subsidy. In fact, even before the national subsidy policy was introduced, many merchants were already offering interest subsidies themselves to stimulate consumption, achieving interest-free installments for some products via Huabei. Driven by the national subsidy policy, platform merchants have expanded the coverage of interest-free offers and extended the number of installments, providing consumers with hundreds of millions of items available for interest-free installment purchases, with options for up to 24 interest-free installments.
Furthermore, ZhaoLian, one of the four consumer finance companies included in the subsidy policy, launched its subsidy system on September 1, 2025. This involved optimizing business processes, establishing a dedicated national subsidy section, providing customers with access to certification results and loan guidance, covering both entrusted payment and self-directed payment consumer loan scenarios. Simultaneously, ZhaoLian standardized its consumption certification and dynamic optimization mechanisms. "First, we defined ZhaoLian's certification standards: for self-directed payment transactions, those under 50,000 yuan require transaction records, while amounts of 50,000 yuan and above require invoices, covering common consumption scenarios and excluding non-consumption transactions like transfers or wealth management," a ZhaoLian representative explained. "Second, we established a weekly update mechanism for the list of customer consumption merchants, continuously refining it through manual review and customer feedback to improve the consumption certification database and efficiency. Third, we track subsidy data daily and optimize operational procedures."
Recently, during the year-end peak consumption season, Du Xiaoman also launched a New Year shopping festival national subsidy campaign. The campaign offers benefits such as "new customers receive interest rate reduction coupons of up to 1.5% and 30-day interest-free coupons" (subject to the actual interface) and "cashback on every loan," while existing customers can enjoy subsidies of up to 1%, directly reducing users' funding costs and effectively stimulating their willingness to spend in key areas like home renovation, education, and travel.
Notably, the rules following the new policy not only extend the implementation period to the end of 2026 but also significantly upgrade the consumption support. JD.com stated that users enjoying subsidies through JD Baitiao now benefit from a wider scope: the previous 500 yuan cap on the subsidy amount per consumption item and the 1,000 yuan cumulative subsidy limit per borrower per institution for consumption under 50,000 yuan have both been removed. Simultaneously, previous restrictions on specific consumption sectors have been eliminated, allowing users to make purchases across all areas. Reportedly, consumers on JD.com can enjoy multiple reductions conveniently through instant discounts at checkout. The system automatically calculates the eligible subsidy amount and applies the deduction directly during payment, requiring no extra steps from the user. Furthermore, the national subsidy can be stacked with various JD platform promotions; consumers selecting items marked with both "National Subsidy" and "Instant National Rebate" identifiers can achieve double savings.
One Beijing resident, upon learning of the new policy, purchased AR glasses through the JD.com platform. The product's original price was 3,299 yuan. After the 2026 national subsidy policy included smart glasses, she first enjoyed a 15% instant national rebate, then stacked a first-purchase device subsidy, and finally utilized a 24-month installment plan via JD Baitiao with the 1% annualized subsidy, ultimately saving over 700 yuan, equivalent to buying at 20% off the original price. "Now it's not just about saving money; more importantly, it allows me to spread this expense out upfront, making daily budgeting less tight," the resident said, becoming one of the earliest beneficiaries of the upgraded subsidy policy, practically enjoying the convenience of consumption through stacked discounts and subsidy support.
Covering hundreds of millions of people, the estimated subsidy scale is approximately 18 to 20 billion yuan. What is the scale of these subsidies? Zeng Gang, Deputy Director of the National Institution for Finance & Development, predicted that based on the policy's coverage, support intensity, and historical implementation data, the total subsidy scale for this policy in 2026 is estimated to be around 200 billion yuan. Specifically for personal consumer loan subsidies, with an annualized subsidy rate of 1%, a maximum cumulative subsidy of 3,000 yuan per person per institution, the policy period extended to end-2026, and coverage expanded to credit card installments, and referencing the 2025 policy coverage exceeding 200 million people, if resident participation increases to 30% in 2026, the subsidy scale in this area is estimated to be between 18 and 20 billion yuan.
Currently, JD.com's subsidy service has achieved comprehensive coverage across hundreds of millions of products and services. Data indicates the policy's significant effect in stimulating consumption potential and enhancing financial inclusion. By mid-January 2026, the average transaction amount for users utilizing the subsidy function on JD.com's platform had increased by nearly 20% compared to pre-policy levels; notably, orders using subsidies from third-tier and lower cities accounted for 44%, demonstrating the policy's geographic inclusivity.
Additionally, a representative from Ant Consumer Finance stated that it launched a "National Subsidy" product section on Taobao and Tmall, centrally displaying items eligible for interest-free installments with the national subsidy. Since its launch on October 30, 2025, tens of millions of consumers have browsed this section, indicating the policy's reach to a broader consumer base.
Wang Pengbo, Chief Analyst at Broadcom Consulting, pointed out that the core of consumer loan subsidies is to reduce residents' credit costs, expand domestic demand, and simultaneously broaden the business scope for consumer finance institutions. Compared to previous years, this year's policy places greater emphasis on coordinated efforts with credit card installments. Consumer finance institutions can simplify application processes for both consumer loans and credit card installments, launch dedicated subsidy portals, collaborate with high-frequency consumption scenarios like supermarkets, tourism, and home decoration to offer bundled products, and clearly publicize the subsidy rules for credit card bill installments, allowing users to easily understand key information like interest rate benefits and repayment terms. Furthermore, they can enhance policy implementation efficiency through online-offline coordination, truly delivering benefits directly to the end consumer. "The significance of this measure extends beyond short-term consumption stimulation; it can guide residents towards rational consumption and institutions towards compliant operations," Wang Pengbo stated.
Balancing growth and risk to ensure subsidies reach intended targets precisely. "In the short term, subsidizing personal consumer loans can directly reduce residents' financing costs for consumption, leverage demand for big-ticket items like cars, appliances, and home furnishings, and simultaneously boost daily consumption," Zeng Gang noted. "In the long run, it is conducive to cultivating new consumption hotspots and investment growth points, laying a solid industrial foundation for the sustained expansion of domestic demand." He emphasized that fully realizing the policy's potential requires accompanying measures such as simplifying application processes and strengthening fund supervision to ensure subsidy funds precisely reach market entities, truly transforming "policy dividends" into "domestic demand momentum."
Regarding risk control, the Ant Consumer Finance representative explained that its primary method is providing the national subsidy service through Huabei installments. Unlike cash loan products, Huabei was born as scenario-based finance, supporting residents' daily consumption within specific contexts, with each Huabei transaction corresponding to a real and clear consumption scenario. "As large language models and multimodal graph relationship network technologies mature, supported by stronger computing power and more complex algorithms, Huabei can acquire and process more diverse and fragmented data in real-time, dynamically assess risks, and build a deeply scenario-based risk management system covering the entire 'pre-loan, in-loan, post-loan' process, ensuring credit funds precisely irrigate genuine consumer demand," the Ant representative elaborated.
From Wang Pengbo's perspective, for institutions, risk management must focus on preventing fund misuse and fraudulent applications. Institutions need to integrate consumption scenario data, cross-check the stated purpose of consumer loans and credit card installments against actual consumption records, and verify repayment capacity using multi-dimensional information like user income and credit history to prevent funds from flowing into non-consumption areas like investments or wealth management. Additionally, consumer finance institutions can subsequently focus on lower-tier markets and new consumption scenarios, strengthen policy communication to increase user awareness of benefits, and improve service response speed while balancing business growth with risk control, all within compliance boundaries.
"Identifying the authenticity and compliance of loan funds is the core of risk management. Institutions should establish strict review mechanisms and can utilize technology for real-time tracking of fund flows to ensure earmarked use," suggested Li Fumin, Director and Senior Partner at Shandong Longquan Law Firm. "Furthermore, strengthening cooperation with merchants to verify the authenticity of consumption behavior can help prevent fund misappropriation and other violations."
