Shenzhen Calls for Local Banks to “Guarantee Loan Stability” for Beleaguered Small Businesses

Shenzhen’s financial authorities have called for lenders within the city to ensure they provide adequate support to small businesses still reeling from the impacts of COVID-19-related restrictions.

Shenzhen’s banking and securities regulators recently jointly issued the “Notice on Further Strengthening Financial Services Support for the Ongoing Stable Development of the Economy and Society During the Pandemic” (关于进一步加强疫情期间金融服务支持经济社会持续稳定发展的通知).

The Notice outlines a total of six measures for shoring up financial services support for the Shenzhen economy during the imposition of new COVID-19 lockdown measures, including:

1. Raising the quality and efficiency of pandemic-resistance financial products and services. Encouraging financial institutions to provide specialist pandemic-prevention bank loans to enterprises and individuals.
2. Effectively providing financial services to troubled enterprises and individuals. Encouraging financial institutions and local financial organisations to expand contact with troubled enterprises, promptly resolving the difficulties and complaints of such enterprises, and actively providing financial support. Local legal person banks must make effective use of financial inclusion micro-and-small loan support tools and other monetary policy tools, further expanding loan support for micro-and-small enterprises, and expanding the intensity of credit and loan extension to micro-and-small enterprises.
3. Making full use of the role of insurance and guarantees. Encouraging and guiding insurance institutions to expand enterprise asset insurance, secure production liability insurance, and export credit insurance, to provide more guarantees for the operation and production of micro-and-small enterprises.
4. Making full use of the role of local financial organisations. Encouraging micro-loans, financial leasing, commercial factoring and other financial organisations to reduce fees or interest rates or increase lending to enterprises affected by the pandemic.
5. Increasing the efficiency of cross-border renminbi operations. Encouraging banks to open up “green channels” for cross-border renminbi operations in relation to pandemic prevention and related imports and exports of materials and donations.
6. Raising the convenience of financial services. Encouraging financial institutions and local financial organisations to put pandemic-resistance products online; simplify operational procedures and pragmatically raise the efficiency of operations processing. Optimizing and diversifying non-contact service channels, and actively guiding customers to use the Internet and mobile banking to make use of financial services, reducing movements of personnel.