This year, ICBC has continued to deepen internet-based, standardized financing and scenario-based innovation to provide more efficient and convenient financing services  and reduce financing costs for businesses. As at the end of April, ICBC’s outstanding internet-based financing had reached RMB 690.4 billion, up by RMB 61.2 billion or 9.7% over the beginning of the year, expanding financing access for small and micro enterprises in the real economy.

According to an official with ICBC, internet-based financing is an innovation effort integrating cutting-edge information technology and financial advantages to improve  financing efficiency and risk control in response to financing difficulty faced by small and micro enterprises. In recent years, ICBC has not only accelerated internet transformation for some complex financing businesses, but also developed various standardized, scenario-based financing products, extending financial services into upstream and downstream chains of small and micro enterprises.

In transforming traditional loan business, ICBC accelerated online migration of some processes related to credit data collection, investigation, approval and loan granting and continued to strengthen credit management through big data. As at the end of April, the Bank’s outstanding internet-based financing reached RMB 193.7 billion, up by RMB 33.2 billion over the beginning of the year.

Regarding innovation of standardized financing business, ICBC has launched online petty loan with the help of big data, providing small and micro enterprises with pure credit online financing services combining limit granting and online self-service. Up to now, a total of RMB 240 million loans have been granted to more than 700 small and micro enterprises in Chongqing and other areas, which has significantly addressed financing difficulties for asset-light start-up businesses. In January this year, ICBC also combined bill business with internet technology to launch the online bill pool pledge financing business featuring customer application and whole-process automatic processing, which achieved financing worth RMB 5 billion for small and micro enterprises.

In scenario-based financing innovation, ICBC has extended financial services into upstream and downstream business of enterprises, and created various types of new supply chain financing services. For example, the new centralized procurement mode of “Internet + Architecture + Finance” created by ICBC and China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC), using the trade flow, fund flow and logistics information of CSCEC on the ICBC Mall, provided supporting financing services for the upstream suppliers of CSCEC, which has so far delivered RMB 1.29 billion financing to 44 suppliers of CSCEC. ICBC and FAW Volkswagen also launched  online supply chain financing business in March this year. In addition, ICBC worked with Baiwang Corporation to boost the use of tax data in innovation of internet-based financing business.