Five of China’s big state-owned banks saw growth in their micro-and-small loan balances of more than 30% in 2021, following the Chinese central government’s push for greater financial inclusion.
Bank of China (BOC), China Construction Bank (CCB), Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and Bank of Communications (BOCOM) all saw their financial inclusion micro-and-small enterprise (MSE) loan balances increase by more than 30% in 2021, according to their latest round of annual reports.
This means that all five of these banks satisfied the financial inclusion requirements set by the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) last year.
On 9 April 2021 CBIRC issued the “Notice Concerning Further Driving High-quality Growth in Micro-and-Small Enterprise Financial Services” (中国银保监会办公厅关于2021年进一步推动小微企业金融服务高质量发展的通知).
The Notice stipulated that all five of these big state-owned banks should achieve annual growth in financial inclusion MSE loans of at least 30% in 2021.
ICBC posted MSE loan balance growth of 52.5% in 2021, while for BOC the growth rate was 53.15%, and for BOCOM it was 49.23%.
The big state-owned lenders were not the only Chinese banks to see surging growth in financial inclusion MSE lending in 2021.
Industrial Bank Co., saw growth of 56.22%, Ping An Bank an increase of 35.70%, and Jiangsu Jiangyin Rural Commercial Bank a rise of 42.30%.
