Guides
Keeping a ledger, from the first week on
Short, practical pieces on why to record your spending and how to do it so that it lasts. Nothing here requires Cenno; everything here is how Cenno was built.
- 01 Investors Lost ¥1.45 Trillion. The Fees Kept Coming.
A fund can lose value while its fixed management fee continues to accrue. Here is how the fee mechanism, star-manager story, and investor risk fit together.
September 8, 2026 · 8 min read
- 02 Three Months. RMB 4 Million. The Guru Never Existed.
The group had a rule. Post a trading screenshot and your membership fee is waived. It was not homework. It was a tally of how much money was about to arrive, and the man who told you to buy was the one selling.
September 13, 2026 · 8 min read
- 03 RMB 123.96 Billion, Then Nothing: One Line Vanished From China's Payment Report
For years the central bank's annual payment report carried a paragraph on credit lines, outstanding balances and overdue debt. In the 2025 edition that paragraph is gone. Search the full text and four key terms return zero hits. The last figure anyone can see stopped at RMB 123.96 billion, and it was rising.
September 14, 2026 · 7 min read
- 04 The Fund Hit a Record High. The Money Left Anyway.
A Chinese macro hedge fund reached an all-time high in January 2026. By April its assets had halved. Of the 64 products the firm has registered, 49 were filed between 2021 and April 2023 — and the peak in net value came on April 21, 2023.
September 16, 2026 · 7 min read
- 05 The Snack Chain Has 26,405 Stores. It Owns 9.
Four pieces of beef jerky rang up at RMB 64.58 and weighed a quarter of what the receipt said. The chain behind the store opened up 88.08% on its Hong Kong IPO in January, has 26,405 stores of which it owns 9, and earns 99.2% of its revenue selling goods to franchisees. Regulators checked hundreds of scales and found most of them fine.
September 17, 2026 · 7 min read
- 06 The Service Is Due in 2031. The Office Emptied in 2026.
A parent in Shanxi paid RMB 8,980 for help filing a university application in 2031. The child is in eighth grade. From August 2026 the two companies behind the sale cut more than 220 staff and closed their offices. The data such a service runs on — scores, quotas, cutoff rules — is public, and the Ministry of Education's own tool is free.
September 18, 2026 · 7 min read
- 07 She Paid RMB 0.99 for Seven Days. The Charges Ran Nine Months.
A woman in Guangzhou bought a 0.99-yuan seven-day trial. When it ended, the app began charging RMB 39 a month at 1 a.m., and kept charging for nine months. She opened it twice in that time, and found the charges only when she sat down to go through a month of spending.
September 19, 2026 · 8 min read
- 08 A Face Scan Paid RMB 15,000. It Also Signed for a Loan.
In August 2026 a QR-code payment of RMB 15,000 turned into an installment plan during the face-recognition step, adding RMB 120.89 in interest and fees. From September 30, China's new rules bar non-bank payment institutions from listing loans among payment tool options — and since September 18, "RMB 0.11 a day" can no longer stand in for an annualized rate.
September 20, 2026 · 9 min read
- 09 He Took Over Four Gyms for Nothing. Members Paid RMB 750,000.
Some gym memberships go on sale only after the shop has already decided to close. In January a Shanghai court convicted a "professional closer" of contract fraud — he took over four gyms without paying for them, then sold discounted cards before shutting the doors. In another case, a yoga studio changed its legal representative one day after the share transfer and applied to deregister two weeks later.
September 23, 2026 · 10 min read
- 10 84.56% Ask at the Branch. 20.64% Go by the Contract Terms.
In a 2025 consumer financial-literacy survey run by the Chinese regulator's complaints-and-mediation center with two partner institutions, branches of financial institutions are the single largest channel through which people get information about financial products, at 84.56%. Nearly half of respondents — 49.95% — say they read contract terms carefully. But asked what they go on when choosing a product, only 20.64% name reading the contract terms carefully; the answer picked most often is "decide on my own, based on experience and knowledge," at 58.04%. Deposit insurance covers deposits — up to RMB 500,000 per depositor at any one insured institution. The deposit-insurance sign hangs over the door, not over every contract signed at the counter.
September 24, 2026 · 13 min read