Fintech Will Drive Greater Financial Support for the Real Economy: State-owned Media

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China’s state-owned press has flagged further policy measures to drive greater support of the real economy by the financial sector, as well as highlighted the role played by fintech innovations.

The state-run Economic Information Daily reports that “in future the strength of policies for finance to support the real economy will further intensify, and by means of measures including the development of fintech and improvements to the bond market and credit system, promote the growth of the real economy, and in particular small and medium-sized enterprises”

“The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), PBOC and other departments are expanding the vigour of support for enterprises in the real economy when it comes to ares including bond issuance and lending; continually reducing the cost of enterprise financing and optimising the financing structure.”

2018 has already seen the launch of a slew of measures by NDRC and PBOC to expand the vigour of support provided by the financial sector to the real economy.

Data from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) indicates that renminbi loans made to actors in the real economy during the first half of 2018 reached 8.76 trillion yuan, for an increase of 554.8 billion yuan compared to the same period last year.

Liu Shijin (刘世锦) , a member of PBOC’s monetary policy committee, said that a fundamental requirement for the growth of the real economy is reductions in costs, and in particular reductions in the cost of funds and energy.

“Especially in the sphere of finance, entry thresholds should be further loosened at the same time that regulation is improved and strengthened, with a focus on raising the level of professionalism of financial institutions and substantively increasing the quality of service provided by financial enterprises to the real economy, in order to resolve the problem of financing being difficult and expensive for small and medium-sized enterprises.”