On August 14th, Qifu Technology (NASDAQ: QFIN, HKEX: 3660) announced that Zhou Hongyi has resigned as chairman and director of the company due to personal reasons and is no longer a member of the company's board of directors. The board of directors of Qifu Technology has approved the appointment of Zhao Fan as the chairman of the board and the appointment of Liu Xiangge as an independent director of the board, effective from August 13, 2024. According to public information, Zhou Hongyi is the founder, chairman, and CEO of 360 Company.
The reporter learned that Qifu Technology has been seeking strategic and operational independence. It is reported that Qifu Technology, formerly known as 360 Finance, officially operated independently in June 2018 and went public in the United States in December of the same year. It went public again in Hong Kong in November 2022. On August 8, 2020, 360 Finance officially announced its brand upgrade and adopted "360 Digital Science" as the new brand.
On the evening of February 14, 2023, 360 Digital announced the company's brand name change to Qifu Technology, stating that it will fully focus on financial technology strategy and help financial institutions achieve digital transformation. A person related to Qifu Technology responded to reporters at the time, saying, "Although the company's name is derived from 360, the two sides have completely different business positioning and are independent of each other. 360 focuses on digital security, and after being renamed Qifu Technology, it deeply cultivates the financial technology service market, which can further highlight the company's determination to independently develop its financial technology strategy
On August 2nd of this year, Qifu Technology announced that it will upgrade its core product "360 IOUs" in a step-by-step manner to "Qifu IOUs". In the near future, Qifu IOUs will be parallel to 360 IOUs to meet the phased needs of users. At present, the product has established close cooperative relationships with 160 financial institutions across the country, accumulated over 247.6 million registered users, and provided credit support of over 2 trillion yuan.