Today, our topic is about rural microfinance. Rural microfinance is a loan that financial institutions provide to farmers without mortgage or guarantee within the approved amount and period according to their economic situation and credit degree. Provide financial support to customers in the form of "one-time approval, loan with use, balance control and recycling", with simple procedures and favorable interest rates. Microfinance insurance is the accidental injury insurance provided by the insurance company to the loan farmers when financial institutions issue microfinance to them, which generally covers the liability of accidental disability and accidental death insurance.
The market potential is huge
In recent years, with the development of rural economy and the strong support of national policies, microfinance insurance has developed rapidly and has great development potential.
First, there are many contractors. At present, there are many financial institutions in the market, such as rural credit cooperatives, China Agricultural Bank, China Agricultural Development Bank, China Postal Savings Bank and microfinance companies, and many other financial institutions provide microfinance services to customers. These financial institutions have perfect financial products, strong financial strength, convenient sales network and huge high-quality customers, which provide high-quality development channels for insurance companies to explore the microfinance insurance market.
The second is national policy support. The development of agriculture, countryside and farmers has always been the primary concern of our government. In recent years, governments and financial institutions at all levels have continuously increased their financial support for agriculture. This year, the "No.1 Document" of the Central Committee first proposed to explore the establishment of an interactive mechanism between rural credit and agricultural insurance. Chen Wenhui, Assistant Chairman of China Insurance Regulatory Commission,
2009
The National Conference on Life Insurance Supervision in 2008 proposed that the CIRC will promote the comprehensive cooperation between micro-insurance and micro-credit, and jointly study the regulatory measures to promote the development of micro-insurance and micro-credit with the CBRC. The strong support of national policies has created rare development opportunities and broad development space for the development of microfinance and microfinance insurance.
Third, the market potential is huge. Taking Shanxi Rural Credit Cooperatives as an example, as of June 2008, 65,438+10, Shanxi Rural Credit Cooperatives issued a total of 87.847 billion yuan of loans to support agriculture.
There are 3,282,800 households, and the total amount of agricultural loans accounts for more than 98% of the bank structure in the province. With the insurance rates of 0.3 ‰ and 50% in the accidental injury insurance clauses of China Life Company's small loan borrowers.
According to the insurance rate, the accident insurance premium of rural credit cooperatives alone exceeded 654.38 billion yuan.
Fourth, the enthusiasm of insurance companies is high. Microfinance insurance business has become an important way for insurance companies to explore new markets, innovate new channels, seek premium scale and profit growth points because of its unique characteristics such as great market potential, high customer quality, low cost and good benefits. All insurance companies try their best to invest a lot of manpower, material resources and financial resources in this business and actively develop this business. According to incomplete statistics, as of
From June, 5438 to February, 2007, there were 28 insurance institutions in China engaged in rural micro-loan insurance business, achieving a premium income of 540 million yuan.
Since 2008, China Life Xinzhou Branch has actively innovated its development ideas and methods, adopting "farmers+small loans+".
Micro-insurance has taken a gratifying step in micro-credit insurance business and accumulated some experience. From June 2008 to May 2009, the premium income of microfinance was 765,438+09.38.
Ten thousand yuan, and achieved good results.
Do a good job in six-character articles
Microfinance insurance is a brand-new market. To speed up the microfinance insurance business, we can start with the following six words.
"High"-aim high. Specifically, first, the positioning of insurance should be high. We should fully understand the great potential of micro-credit insurance business, put micro-credit insurance at the height of insurance companies serving "agriculture, countryside and farmers" and building a harmonious socialist new countryside, and clearly position and point out the direction for business development. Second, we should attach great importance to it. Micro-credit insurance business should be an important way for city and county companies to develop innovative accident insurance business. The company's attention and support is the prerequisite for the successful start and rapid development of microfinance insurance business.
"Honesty"-communication should be sincere. In terms of sales channels, microfinance insurance business belongs to agency business, and winning the acceptance and support of cooperative units, especially cooperative units, has become the key to building a development platform. When carrying out business public relations, we should pay special attention to winning the recognition and support of the cooperative units in good faith. The recognition and support of cooperative units is the key to win the development platform and the cooperation of microfinance insurance business.
"Real"-the foundation should be solid. When developing micro-credit business, practical measures should be taken according to the actual business. First, it is necessary to set up a special sales team to ensure the actual business needs involved in this business process, such as policy handover, premium transfer and network maintenance. Second, it is necessary to establish an assessment and incentive mechanism, which can refer to the way of bank branch account managers, formulate effective assessment and incentive measures for microfinance insurance administrators, establish a team development mechanism that rewards diligence and punishes laziness and eliminates the fittest, and fully mobilize the enthusiasm and initiative of front-line sales personnel. The third is to organize special training to improve sales skills. Training in product characteristics, enterprise management practices, capital transfer and sales skills is carried out in practical business to improve sales skills and improve sales performance as soon as possible.
"Belt"-development needs belt. In the competition of organizing and promoting microfinance insurance business, we can build a typical regional development model and a point-to-area development pattern according to the size and geographical location of the microfinance investment of the cooperative units. In order to improve work efficiency and quality in practical operation, it is necessary to summarize and refine the good experiences and practices of advanced units in time and popularize them quickly. By setting a model and demonstrating, encouraging the advanced and urging the backward, it will strongly promote the development of microfinance insurance business.
"Fine"-work should be fine. In the development of microfinance insurance business, details determine success or failure. First, be careful in strengthening public relations and enhancing feelings. The second is meticulous in work quality and efficiency. For example, timely reporting of business development progress, insurance case payment limit, premium and handling fee transfer, etc., should be accurate and efficient. Through careful emotional training and meticulous work, we will create a good interpersonal atmosphere and working atmosphere for the rapid development of our business.
"Fast"-claims should be settled quickly. "The best and most direct embodiment of insurance is service, especially claims service. According to the characteristics of microfinance insurance business, establish a green channel for service and compensation. On the premise of complete information, high-quality and efficient services reflect the advantages of quick response and convenient service of insurance companies, so that cooperative units can increase their recognition of the strength of insurance companies and enhance their confidence in business cooperation.
Qi Xin made concerted efforts to forge ahead.
Facing the vast market of micro-credit insurance, only by combining wisdom and scientific development can we continuously expand the cooperation field of micro-credit, deepen the cooperation relationship and continuously expand the cooperation results. After the successful launch of microfinance insurance, we should focus on the following work to rapidly promote the development of microfinance insurance business:
First of all, we should increase media publicity. It is necessary to actively use various publicity media to increase the publicity of the procedures, insurance benefits and typical cases of microfinance insurance.
The second is to tap the potential. While expanding the sales field, we should pay attention to tapping the production potential of outlets, expand cooperation with cooperative units according to the loan amount and underwriting ratio of outlets, and intensively cultivate microfinance insurance business.
The third is strict management and strict control of risks. By strengthening professional ethics education, standardizing business processes, strictly managing systems and conducting risk investigation, all kinds of risks that may occur in business operation are eliminated. Provide a lifeline for the sustainable and healthy development of microfinance insurance business.
Main problems in rural microfinance
The contradiction between supply and demand of funds is prominent. With the change of rural economic structure and the differentiation of farmers' groups, rural financial needs are gradually diversified, including consumer credit demand, production and operation loan demand and venture loan demand, which are quite different in financing scale, term and risk. Microfinance has played a significant role in providing basic credit services, helping farmers solve financial difficulties in life and production, and effectively alleviating farmers' financial needs. However, compared with the total capital demand of the whole rural market at present, it is still insufficient. One of the important reasons is the narrow source of working capital for rural microfinance institutions.
At present, the only default sources of funds for non-profit microfinance institutions are assistance from foreign countries or international organizations and some poverty alleviation loans. However, this kind of external donation is unsustainable or insufficient. Commercial financial institutions are divided into formal financial institutions and informal financial institutions. Formal financial institutions are characterized by the risk and periodicity of the agricultural economy, and the central bank strictly controls the deposit and loan spreads. Therefore, at present, the interest rates charged by most formal financial institutions can't compensate the operating costs and can't achieve the situation of self-financing. A lot of rural funds flow to cities. For the above reasons, there is a big gap and contradiction between the increasing financing demand of farmers and the financing supply of rural financial institutions.
Credit products are relatively simple. Due to the regional and cyclical characteristics of agricultural production, farmers' demand for credit funds is different in scale, purpose and duration. Farmers' basic demand for micro-credit mainly comes from the production field of purchasing seeds, fertilizers and other necessities of agricultural means of production, but after the basic demand is met, farmers' financing demand further turns to consumer credit. However, at present, many formal financial institutions mainly provide productive loans, so for some farmers with low income levels, the demand for consumer financing is often not met. In addition, due to the long agricultural production cycle, most farmers want to obtain medium and long-term loans, while the micro-loans provided by financial institutions are mostly short-term loans within 1 year, which is difficult to meet the medium and long-term capital needs of farmers. According to relevant research, among the sample farmers who have made loans in the past two years, about 60% of them expect the loan period to be 1 ~ 3 years, about 20% expect the loan period to be more than 3 years or even longer, and about 10% believe that the micro-credit with a term of less than 1 year can meet the needs of daily production and life.
The interest rate structure is unreasonable. First, because the credit system in many rural areas is imperfect or even missing, the credit operation of financial institutions bears great credit risks and operational risks, and banks often prevent risks by raising interest rates. Second, the transaction cost of micro-credit is very high because of the expenses incurred by banks in investigating and evaluating farmers' various needs and credit risks. Microfinance institutions can only make up for the cost by raising the loan interest rate.
From the perspective of financial institutions, interest rate is the rate of return of funds. However, interest rate is the price of capital, the production cost of farmers and consumption cost. Therefore, from the perspective of farmers, it is natural to hope that the lower the interest rate, the better, or even zero interest. According to relevant research, about 90% of farmers expect the annual interest rate of small loans to be below 5%, and only about 2% of farmers say that they can accept the annual interest rate of loans of about 10%. A survey conducted by scholars in Tunchang shows that there is a strong correlation between farmers' satisfaction with microfinance and government subsidies, that is, if there is no government discount on microfinance, then farmers are not satisfied with microfinance.
According to the author's investigation in Sijia Town, Haimen City, Jiangsu Province, among the sample farmers, there are 130 households with loans, of which 59% borrow from relatives and friends, 13% from rural credit cooperatives, 18.5% from banks and other financial institutions, and1from Qianhui. It can be seen that only 3 1.5% of farmers borrow from formal financial institutions.
Credit risk of microfinance. First of all, the core of microfinance is business, not free charitable donations and government poverty alleviation loans. However, due to the insufficient publicity of government departments and the limited cognitive ability of farmers, some farmers may equate microfinance with national poverty alleviation funds, which reduces the willingness to repay, forms credit risks and brings great losses to microfinance institutions. Secondly, agricultural production is weak and vulnerable to natural disasters, which leads to unstable income of farmers, insecure repayment sources and increased risk of rural microfinance. Finally, from the current situation, the risk control of microfinance institutions is mainly to prevent risks through strict credit investigation and raising loan interest rates before lending. Borrowing farmers will change the loan quality due to changes in subjective and objective factors. However, banks do not strictly implement the post-loan review, and lack a relatively perfect post-loan mechanism to help farmers realize their investment and get returns, which reduces the loan risk.
The sustainable development of microfinance institutions is insufficient. The purpose of government poverty alleviation microfinance is to achieve social equality and stability, not to pursue profit. However, commercial microfinance institutions are different. As an enterprise, it should ensure its sustainable development and obtain considerable profits on the premise of maintaining its own survival. However, some restrictions on informal financial institutions in China are strict. For example, microfinance companies are not allowed to absorb public deposits or invest with bank loans, and can only use the limited free funds of shareholders to conduct business. This restriction makes rural microfinance institutions lack stable and sufficient sources of follow-up funds, unable to give full play to the role of rural microfinance in supporting rural economic development, and also increases the risk of credit funds.
Suggestions on Promoting the Development of Rural Microfinance
Expand the sources of microfinance funds and guide the return of rural funds. Due to the high risk and low interest rate of rural microfinance, the rural funds absorbed by formal financial institutions have flowed out. The government should take some measures, such as tax incentives and interest subsidies, to guide the flow of funds from rural areas to cities. At the same time, appropriately relax the floating range of interest rates and implement flexible interest rates for rural microfinance. Rural microfinance institutions can determine different loan interest rates according to farmers' income, credit records and risks, and can link the risk level with the loan interest rate level to compensate for risk losses. In terms of sources of funds, informal finance can be brought into the supervision scope of formal finance, idle private funds can be rationally utilized, the sources of funds for microfinance can be expanded, and well-run microfinance institutions can be allowed to enter the capital market, borrow funds and refinance in the interbank market. We can learn from the Bangladesh model, and the funds come from member deposits, operating income and wholesale funds.
Establish and improve the rural credit system. By working with the local government to build a credit system, we can get enough information from multiple levels, establish a good credit system, and realize the enjoyment of information. At the same time, we will increase the publicity of microfinance, strengthen farmers' legal awareness, clarify the legal responsibilities and consequences of breach of contract, and crack down on malicious evasion of debts through legal and administrative means. We can learn from the "joint guarantee" model of microfinance in Bangladesh, and replace the traditional mortgage guarantee with mutual guarantee of loan team members. For banks, providing collateral is an effective measure to reduce the risk of bank loans, but for rural microfinance borrowers, most of them are poor farmers, so it is difficult to provide collateral that meets the requirements of banks. This "joint guarantee" model can make the supervision and supervised relationship between banks and lenders be replaced by mutual supervision and mutual responsibility of loan team members; The relationship between banks and decentralized lenders has also become the relationship between banks and small-scale collectives. Because the members of the loan agreement team are familiar with it, one person's breach of contract will implicate other members and lose the loan qualification. This will help banks save management costs before issuing loans, and also reduce the credit risks faced by banks.
Innovative mortgage guarantee methods. One of the difficulties faced by the rural financial system is that farmers lack sufficient collateral. Under the existing legal framework, the provisions of rural credit cooperatives, postal savings banks or agricultural banks on mortgage collateral are too narrow. On the one hand, many poor farmers do not have enough fixed assets as collateral, on the other hand, they still face many legal difficulties in using land as collateral, which leads to the inability of rural financial institutions to lend money. Therefore, there is a strong practical demand for innovative mortgage guarantee methods. According to the provisions of the Property Law on chattel mortgage, it is suggested that in the rural financial market, farmers and rural enterprises can use chattel as collateral when applying for loans from banks. Farmers engaged in traditional agricultural industries can apply for loans from banks with agricultural products and aquaculture products or their future income as collateral, but this method still needs many detailed rules and supporting facilities.
Promote the development of agricultural insurance. It is suggested that microfinance products should be bundled with agricultural insurance products. There are all kinds of natural risks in agricultural production, which will cause great losses to people's lives and property, and have a destructive impact on farmers' lives and economic income, thus causing high risks of rural microfinance. Developing agricultural insurance is the need to prevent natural risks and quickly restore agricultural production after disasters. It is of great theoretical and far-reaching practical significance to ensure the smooth progress of agricultural reproduction, stabilize farmers' production income and enthusiasm for agricultural production, and thus reduce the risk of rural microfinance to a certain extent.
Properly relax interest rate control and improve interest rate structure. The excessive control of interest rate distorts the price of funds and makes the allocation of financial resources unreasonable. It is suggested that the regulatory authorities can relax the interest rate control appropriately and allow microfinance institutions to increase the floating space of microfinance interest rates within the scope permitted by laws and policies, so as to keep the interest rate consistent with the market interest rate. Rural microfinance institutions can increase the supply of financial products. In addition to short-term small loans, they can appropriately increase the provision of medium-and long-term loans, and appropriately price them according to the types and duration of products provided. While interest rates are rising, post-loan management should be strengthened. When farmers encounter natural risks, they can be helped to restructure their repayment plans to ensure their repayment ability and avoid the greater risk of bad debts due to the increase in interest rates.