The chair and party secretary for Yantai-based commercial lender Hengfeng Bank has highlighted the key role played by fintech in advancing China’s financial inclusion efforts.
Chen Ying (陈颖) said that fintech had already emerged as a “core force for the high-quality growth of financial inclusion,” pointing in particular to the ongoing digitisation of the banking sector following the growth of mobile internet, the Internet of Things, cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
Chen made the remarks during a key note speech delivered at the 2019 Small Enterprise Big Dreaming Summit and the Conference on Finance Servicing Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (“小企业大梦想”高峰论坛暨金融服务中小企业大会) held in Beijing by the Chinese Banking Association and the Asset Management Association of China on 26 June.
“Small and medium-enterprises are a key wellspring for nurturing new drivers of the economy, and play a critical role in economic and social development” said Chen. “Financial inclusion is welcoming unprecedented development opportunities and immense space for growth.”
Chen highlighted three ways in which fintech is abetting the high-quality growth of financial inclusion in China:
- Breaking through barriers of space, connecting information islands, and raising the accessibility of financial services. Commercial banks now have an accurate picture of micro and small enterprises and other financial inclusion targets, and are overcoming the problem of a lack of information. Financing platforms are also implementing online automated approvals and smart monitoring.
- Effective reductions in marginal costs, and increases in the acceptability of loan costs.
- Comprehensive expansion of risk controls. While traditional credit surveys have focused on static structural data such as profession, earnings, assets and liabilities, fintech permits the collection of non-structured and dynamic information on customers across a greater range of areas.
