One of China’s biggest retail conglomerates plans to cooperate with a leading joint-stock bank on blockchain and fintech development.
China Economic Net reports that Zhang Jindong (张近东), chair of Suning Holdings Group., met with Li Minji (李民吉), chair and party secretary of Huaxia Bank, at Suning’s head office in Nanjing on 2 August to cement strategic cooperative arrangements between the two companies.
According to the report both parties discussed collaboration in the areas of supply chain financing, consumer finance, payments services, data operations and fintech.
Suning and Huaxia said that they would strengthen cooperation with regard to fintech, including blockchain blacklist sharing platforms, anti-fraud technology and smart customer services.
The meeting between Zhang and Li follows discussions between Suning and Huaxia’s vice-general manager Wang Yiping (王一平) held on 13 July concerning strategic cooperative arrangements.
Beijing-headquartered Huaxia Bank was established in October 1992, before converting into a joint-stock bank in March 1995 and becoming one of China’s first five listed banks in September 2003.
As of the end of 2017 it had total assets of 2.5089 trillion yuan, with annual business revenue of 66.4 billion yuan and net profits of 19.8 billion yuan.
Huaxia Bank plans to focus on the development of fintech, small and medium-sized enterprise financial services, green finance and consumer financing over the upcoming four years.
Suning is considered to be one of China’s leading “smart retailers,” with its operations encompassing retail operations, tech, logistics, finance and investment.
Last year Suning concluded strategic co-operative framework agreements with a slew of leading financial institutions, including Bank of Communications, Bank of Jiangsu, China CITIC Bank and China Minsheng Bank, for collaboration in areas including smart finance, IT, financial advisory services, insurance advisory services, retail financing, cash management and credit extension.
