After the press conference, Chen Conghui, the leader of the 4th Expedition Team of Haidian District Court (Litigation Service Center), was interviewed by the reporter. Kang Dacheng

　　In recent years, loan chaos such as "beheading interest", "routine loan" and deliberately concealing the real interest rate have emerged one after another. How to identify the joint debt of husband and wife in credit consumer loan disputes? Should the handling fee deducted in advance by the lender be included in the principal amount? How can the people’s courts play the role of trial function and realize accurate and effective prevention and control of the source of financial risks? Recently, the Haidian District People’s Court of Beijing issued a typical case of financial disputes over credit consumer loans, which clarified these issues.

　　Joint debts of husband and wife require proof from creditors.

　　On August 18, 2017, Chen Mou (the borrower) signed a Maximum Creditor’s Rights Contract with a bank (the lender), stipulating that the bank intends to provide Chen Mou with a credit line with a maximum creditor’s rights of 300,000 yuan continuously during the five-year credit period, which will be used for personal consumption loans in Chen Mou, and the loan purpose is limited to the borrower himself and family consumption such as decoration, car purchase and marriage.

　　After the signing of the contract, from August to September, 2018, Chen Mou applied to the bank for a loan of 299,900 yuan, and after the approval of the bank, it paid the corresponding amount to the designated account in Chen Mou. After Chen Mou failed to repay the loan as agreed, as of July 22, 2021, the loan principal was still 299,900 yuan, and the corresponding interest, default interest and compound interest were still owed.

　　In the lawsuit, the bank claimed that the loan under the above-mentioned Maximum Creditor’s Rights Contract was used for husband and wife to live together, and the corresponding debt should be the joint debt of Chen Mou and Sun. In this regard, Sun did not recognize it. Sun argued that he and Chen Mou registered their marriage in November 2010 and agreed to divorce in February 2019. Although the above debts occurred during the existence of the husband-wife relationship, he did not sign the loan contract and did not know the corresponding loan situation; Chen Mou’s loans are used to repay his personal debts, but not for family life together. Therefore, the disputed debts are not joint debts of husband and wife. Upon verification, after receiving the above loan, Chen Mou successively transferred the money to himself or the fund management company outside the case, but did not transfer it to Sun’s name.

　　The court held that Chen Mou should bear the corresponding liability for breach of contract. However, the Maximum Creditor’s Rights Contract was signed by Chen Mou personally, and the disputed loan was also applied by Chen Mou personally, and was distributed to the designated account in Chen Mou. The corresponding creditor’s rights certificate was not signed and recognized by Sun, and Sun personally did not issue any written commitment to confirm that the corresponding debt belonged to the joint debt of husband and wife. In addition, although the Maximum Creditor’s Rights Contract states that the corresponding loan uses include household consumption, it cannot be determined that the litigation money is actually used for the daily life or joint production and operation of Chen Mou and Sun. Therefore, the evidence submitted by the bank is not enough to prove that the debt belongs to the joint debt of husband and wife.

　　In the end, the court ruled that Chen Mou repaid the principal of the bank loan and the corresponding interest, penalty interest and compound interest, and rejected the bank’s claim that Sun should bear the joint repayment responsibility.

　　The judge said that during the marriage relationship, the debts incurred by a husband and wife with a third party, such as a financial institution, in their own name, due to acts such as large loans, are not necessarily joint debts of husband and wife. Article 1064 of the Civil Code provides for this situation, that is, the debts incurred by the husband and wife who jointly sign or one of them ratifies their common intention afterwards, and the debts incurred by one of the husband and wife in his own name for the daily needs of the family during the marriage relationship belong to the joint debts of the husband and wife. The debts incurred by one of the husband and wife during the marriage relationship in their own name beyond the daily needs of the family are not joint debts of the husband and wife; However, the creditor can prove that the debt is used for husband and wife’s common life, joint production and operation, or based on the common will of both husband and wife.

　　The judge said that in judicial practice, if a financial institution can’t prove that the husband and wife have a joint debt or the corresponding debt is actually used for the husband and wife’s common life and joint production and operation, it should bear the adverse consequences as a creditor. The Civil Code makes financial institutions and other creditors bear the corresponding burden of proof, which forces financial institutions to fulfill their more prudent duty of care in the loan review stage, and requires borrowers’ spouses to jointly sign loan contracts and issue joint repayment commitments in accordance with the above provisions, so as to avoid damaging the legitimate rights and interests of the non-debt spouse.

　　Do not charge "beheading interest" in advance.

　　On March 29, 2018, Bai (the borrower) signed a Loan Contract with a microfinance company (the lender) and applied for a loan of 40,000 yuan from a microfinance company. The two parties agreed in the contract that if Bai can’t repay the loan on time due to special reasons, he can only delay the repayment after applying to the company and obtaining the consent, and at the same time, he must pay the company a daily handling fee of 0.0767% according to the time of application delay and the contract loan amount; If Bai applied for delayed repayment on or before the loan start date, Bai agreed that the company would directly deduct the fee from the loan amount when issuing the loan.

　　The first repayment date was originally scheduled for April 30, 2018, and was extended to May 6, 2018 after negotiation, with a total extension of 6 days. On the same day, Bai signed an iou for the above loan, agreeing that the company directly deducted the delayed repayment fee of 184 yuan. The next day, the company transferred 39,816 yuan to Bai’s designated account.

　　Later, due to Bai’s failure to repay the principal and interest according to the contract, the company sued Bai to the court, and made it clear that the loan principal amount was confirmed by the actual transfer amount of 39,816 yuan to Bai, and the corresponding interest was calculated based on the actual repayment situation.

　　After trial, the court held that Bai should bear the corresponding liability for breach of contract, but there was no legal basis for the company to deduct the deferred repayment fee from the principal in advance, so it should determine the loan principal amount and calculate the interest according to the actual transfer. In the end, the court ruled that Bai should bear the corresponding debt service responsibility according to the adjusted loan principal amount.

　　The judge said that when granting a loan to a borrower, the money that the lender first deducted from the principal was commonly known as "beheading interest". In judicial practice, in the process of developing credit consumer loans, individual financial institutions often deduct the interest charged in disguised form in the name of deferred repayment fees and service fees from the principal in advance-charge "beheading interest". This behavior actually reduces the amount of principal provided by the lender of funds, which makes the borrower’s borrowing purpose unable to be fully realized, which is unfair to the borrower, which not only harms the borrower’s interests, but also breaks through the legal interest rate red line in disguised form, so Article 600 of the Civil Code. If the interest is deducted from the principal in advance, the loan shall be returned according to the actual loan amount and the interest shall be calculated.

　　Judicature helps to resolve financial disputes in essence.

　　According to Chen Conghui, the leader of the Fourth Expedition Team of the Filing Court (Litigation Service Center) of Haidian District Court, in the past five years, Haidian District Court has accepted 23,945 financial disputes on credit consumer loans, accounting for 46.12% of all financial cases. This kind of disputes mainly presents three characteristics: a large number, rapid growth, and no obvious solution effect. First, the homogenization and batch characteristics are obvious, and most of them are disputes caused by one or several major consumer financial products of financial institutions; Second, the plaintiffs are concentrated in consumer finance companies, and the lawsuits filed by consumer finance companies are the largest, accounting for 82.74%; Third, the judgment rate is not proportional to the execution rate. The judgment rate of cases is as high as 63.07%, but the execution rate is only 7.25%. It is difficult for financial institutions to win the case.

　　In terms of financial institutions, there are three main reasons for the frequent occurrence of financial disputes over credit consumer loans: First, a small number of financial institutions have irregular pre-lending audits, which has led to the borrower’s debt default; Second, individual financial institutions do not take the initiative to collect money by themselves and rely too much on litigation means; Third, the negotiation schemes of some financial institutions are too rigid, and the dispute resolution is ineffective.

　　In view of the above characteristics, Haidian District Court connects with financial institutions, puts the source of litigation at the forefront, actively connects with financial institutions in its jurisdiction, improves internal risk prevention and control systems such as pre-lending audit and post-lending tracking, and reduces the risk of non-performing loans from the source; Actively cooperate with industry mediation organizations, give full play to the positive role of the working mechanism of "entrusted mediation+judicial confirmation", and promote the diversified and efficient resolution of financial disputes on credit consumer loans; Carefully cultivate demonstration judgments for key cases, popularize the application of small claims procedures, strive to achieve "one judgment, one solution", and effectively improve the efficiency of financial trials; Increase the application rate of small claims procedures, supervise the automatic performance of judgment documents, promote the substantive resolution of disputes from multiple angles, levels and ways, and ensure that a financial case solves a substantive dispute. Since 2023, the number of such disputes accepted by Haidian District Court has been significantly reduced, and the effect of substantive settlement has been significantly improved. Taking a bank as an example, in 2023, the automatic performance rate of effective judgment documents in the financial disputes of credit consumer loans filed by Haidian District Court was nearly 40%.

　　In addition, in view of the typical problems in the consumer finance industry reflected in typical cases, Haidian District Court issued a proposal to financial institutions on December 6, 2023 on optimizing credit management, maintaining financial security, and deepening the governance of litigation sources, advocating financial institutions to adhere to the purpose of finance for the people, make prudent and reasonable loans, do a good job in integrity and compliance management, compact management and collection responsibilities, strengthen diversified dispute resolution mechanisms, and take practical actions to shoulder the social responsibility of finance for the people.

　　Zhou Yuanyuan, deputy to the Beijing Municipal People’s Congress, said that the Haidian District Court effectively responded to the general concerns of the society by issuing typical cases of financial disputes over credit consumer loans, and really played the role of "small cases are powerful" in popularizing the law, realizing "promoting governance by cases", reducing the legal risks brought by information asymmetry, and providing effective normative guidance for financial institutions and financial consumers. She suggested that it is necessary to increase publicity, guide financial institutions to standardize their business, prevent financial risks from the source, and reduce financial disputes.

　　Wei Yifan, a representative of Haidian District People’s Congress, spoke highly of the effectiveness of the Haidian District Court in handling financial disputes. He said that the settlement of credit consumer loan disputes is related to people’s happiness and is of great significance to standardizing financial order and stabilizing the overall situation of society. Haidian District Court adheres to and develops the "Maple Bridge Experience" in the new era, does a good job in the source management and diversified solution of financial disputes, and protects the legitimate rights and interests of various financial market entities equally with efficient and high-quality judicial services.