Heilongjiang province in north-eastern China is using big data and fintech to help resolve the financing challenges of rural farmers.
Hit Big Data Group (哈工大大数据集团) has teamed up with the Heilongjiang Province Agriculture Rural Village Department (黑龙江省农业农村厅) and the Heilongjiang province branch of China Construction Bank (CCB) to launch the “Heilongjiang Province Rural Village Financial Services Platform” (黑龙江省农村金融服务平台).
According to a report from Inner Mongolia News the platform uses an “agricultural big data + fintech” model to reduce the borrowing costs of rural farmers to less than 5%.
The model involves using land ownership data, Hit Big Data’s “rural village land operating rights transfer administrative system (农村土地经营权流转管理系统) and CCB’s financial big data system to provide two products to borrowers – land mortgage loans (土地抵押贷款) and rural household credit loans (农户信用贷款).
The developers of the platform have created a database using information provided by the Heilongjiang government on land ownership, land transfers, agricultural equipment purchases and work subsidies, as well as supplementary information provided by rural farmers themselves.
The platform then employs big data analysis to provide automatic online credit ratings for prospective borrowers, as well as determine credit targets and credit quotas.
Loan applicants have the option of using an app to obtain funds quickly and conveniently via their mobile devices.
The platform is in operation throughout the whole of Heilongjiang province, and as of the start of April had extended 7.199 billion yuan in credit of which 3.502 billion yuan has actually been used.
