Ant Financial’s MYBank Sees 10-fold Increase in Small Enterprise Customers in Three Years

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Ant Financial-backed internet lender MYBank hopes to bring its online financial services to “all roadside stalls in China” after posting surging client growth over the past several years.

Hu Xiaoming (胡晓明), chairman of MYBank and Ant Financial president, said that after its first year of operation following its establishment in June 2015 MYBank’s micro and small-enterprise (MSE) clients had reached 1.7 million in total.

MYBank’s MSE clients have since surged to 17 million, for a 10-fold increase in a period of just three years.

Hu, who presided over the creation of MYBank’s predecessor Ali Micro Loan (阿里小贷), said that its unique “310” business model (three minutes for application, one second for lending, 0 humans involved in review) had already been adopted by 50 financial institutions in China to provide loans to online clientele.

The online lender is especially proud of its provision of “pure credit” collateral-free loans to small businesses, with MYBank approving 73% of first time loan applicants who are small-scale vendors dependent upon QR codes.

Hu said that it hopes to make its online lending services accessible to all of China’s roadside street vendors within the next three years.

“I’ve seen online commentators joke that MYBank’s profits aren’t high and that we’re an ‘idiotic bank'” said Hu.

“Since its establishment MYBank has never made profits a performance index, and has only focused on the number of MSE’s that we service and their level of satisfaction.

“MYBank has always hoped to bring benefit to MSE’s and reduce their costs – the goal is to become the bank which services the largest number of small enterprises in the world with the most modest of profits.”

Hu said that at present 99 out of every 100 loan customers make their repayments on time, and that “this is a full indication that China’s MSE’s have credit!”