Over half of staff at China’s first Online-to-Offline (O2O) bank are tech personnel, as digital banking rapid expands its presence within the Chinese financial sector.
Suning Bank’s (苏宁银行) (also known as Jiangsu Suning) 2019 annual report indicates that its banking operations and management fees reached 348 million yuan last year, for YoY growth of 30.45%.
Suning Bank’s cost-revenue ratio was 34.22%, for a decline of 24.43% compared to 2018.
Suning Bank said the sharp decline in its cost-revenue ratio was due to its pursuit of a fintech-driven development strategy as an O2O lender.
According to its annual report Suning Bank’s total staff numbers were 359 as of the end of last year, including 182 tech personnel, comprising over 50% of all employees.
This compares to 123 sales staff, 50 risk control staff and four management personnel.
Suning Bank is backed by Chinese retail giant Suning Commerce Group, and is China’s first private-sector online-to-offline or O2O bank.
The O2O lender obtained approval for establishment from the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) in December 2016, and commenced operations on 16 June 2017 with registered capital of 4 billion yuan.
As of the end of 2019 total assets were 63.901 billion yuan, while its loan balance was 30.506 billion yuan and its deposit balance was 43.687 billion yuan.
The micro and small-enterprise lending balance was 7.895 billion yuan, while personal loans were 18.49 billion yuan, covering various forms of consumer credit.
As of the end of the last reporting period Suning Bank’s total customers were 24.95 million, for a YoY rise of 44.8%, or 7.73 million customers.
This included 2.89 million loan clients, for 13-fold increase compared to 2018.
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