The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has released a development plan for the fintech industry between 2022 and 2025. “Data-driven, smart, people-oriented, low-carbon, fair and inclusive” should be the words that best describe China’s fintech industry in the following years, according to the plan. By advancing the digital transformation of the entire financial sector, the fintech industry should strive to better facilitate China’s high-quality development, it added. The fintech industry should strengthen its data management capabilities to enhance the quality and efficiency of financial services. An advanced computing system with higher performance should be established to consolidate the groundwork for financial innovation.
Digital technologies should be more widely applied in the financial sector while a smart risk control system should be set up to nurture a safe and efficient fintech innovation system, according to the plan. Andrew Huang, Partner and Fintech Leader of KPMG in China, said that the fintech industry has thrived in China over the past few years with the appearance of new business models and application scenarios. Lowering costs and improving efficiency in the traditional financial sector based on technological breakthroughs will form a major part of the development path for fintech companies. Data security is another major issue that the fintech industry should address, he said.
The banking sector is also increasingly serving the real economy – the part of a country’s economy that produces actual goods and services. In the first 11 months of 2021, new bank loans reached CNY19.2 trillion, mainly in manufacturing and infrastructure construction. As of the end of November, the outstanding balance of loans to small businesses that have a total credit line of up to CNY10 million per borrower was CNY18.7 trillion, up 24.1% year-on-year. The Export-Import Bank of China has strengthened lending to foreign trade companies. As of the end of November, its outstanding balance of loans to the foreign trade sector reached CNY2.39 trillion. China ExIm Bank also increased funding for 158 leading companies in five key industries related to foreign trade and took multiple measures to support micro, small and medium-sized foreign trade companies. As of the end of December, the outstanding balance of its special-purpose loans to the foreign trade sector reached CNY33.3 billion, up CNY16.3 billion from the beginning of last year, supporting more than 10,000 small businesses.
