Abstract
Since 2012, there has been rapid development on P2P network lending as a main business in China internet finance. It involves six internet financial models, namely the third party payment, P2P online loan, big data finance, internet crowd funding, informationalized financial institutions, and internet financial portal. After 2015, financial supervision organizations of Chinese government have applied severe regulation on internet finance. A number of P2P online loan platforms gradually expand their business scope and shift their focus to institutional business. These transformed platforms position themselves as internet wealth management platforms, providing investment and financial information services to enterprises or other financial institutions, in addition to individual investors. Their business develops in the form of F2C financial products, which consist of internet-enabled financial products, funds, securities, insurance, trusts and other financial products. As each kind of F2C product is operated in a separate platform, each of the platforms tends to involve huge volume of transactions. Such operation is essentially different from that of traditional financial institutions, like banks, fund companies, securities companies, insurance companies and trust companies.To deal with massive number of products and investment platform users, platform managers are required to carry out efficient management on the products to improve efficiency of business matching. Specifically, the managers need to decide how to launch the products: (1) Choose which products to launch, (2) determine priority of product launch, and (3) determine how to optimize product design. These problems are summed up as follows: (1) what are the factors affecting the market performance of internet F2C financial products? (2) How do these factors affect the market performance of the products? Moreover, a micro- mechanism of the factors influencing market performance of F2C Internet financial products is investors' decision-making behavior, which can be affected by those product factors. With micro-perspectives, this thesis investigates which factors of F2C internet financial products are influential and how to influence investors' decision-making behavior on internet environments. Furthermore, in order to better meet investment demands of investors, platform managers are required to understand different type of investors so as to provide suitable products and services to optimally benefit enterprises and investors. This thesis also discusses how platform users with different investment experiences differ in making investment decisions on F2C financial products. Furthermore, this thesis explores effectiveness of limited-time-starvation marketing on internet F2C financial products. Finally, in order to adapt to convenience of internet platforms and characteristics of long-tail investment demands, the product trading model for internet F2C financial products needs to be reformed. Therefore, this thesis studies from the perspective of model innovation the market of internet F2C financial products and their risk management.
This thesis finds that market performance of internet F2C financial products is not only reflected in their sales volume, but also in their sales speed at product level. Empirical results show that expected product return rate, product risk, investment threshold, product liquidity, sales period and product size have significant effects on market performance of products. The explanatory power of both sales volume model and speed model are higher than 60%. From a micro level, the rate of return, product liquidity and product scale of Internet F2C financial products demonstrate significant impacts on investors' investment decisions. The impact of product risk on investor decision-making is different from what is theoretically hypothesized. In addition, investors still demonstrate their learning behavior in the internet F2C financial market that investment experience has a significant impact on their investment decisions. When other conditions are constant, older users are more inclined to increase investment more than new users. Experience on platform investment determines the impact of multiple product factors on investor decision-making. With regard to the starvation marketing strategy, remaining time of internet financing products affects the old users only. From the innovation mode of internet F2C financial product, this thesis confirms that SPV model of innovation has significantly positive effect on sales volume and sales speed of internet F2C financial products. At the same time, SPV model of innovation increases potential risk of internet F2C financial products. SPV model of innovation significantly increases the number of investors. It is worthwhile to note that SPV model of innovation significantly attracts more investors with low risk tolerance.
The thesis provides throughout analysis on issues related to internet F2C financial product management from the perspective of product level, investor level and model of innovation. The conclusions of this thesis provide good theoretical foundations for relevant future research. Meanwhile, these conclusions provide important and practical guidance for the platform managers.
| Date of Award | 15 May 2018 |
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| Original language | Chinese (Traditional) |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Chak Sham Michael WONG (Supervisor) & Hong LING (External Supervisor) |