Wednesday, 8 May 2024
MYbank reports serving over 20 million SMEs as of 2019
MYbank, an online private commercial bank under Ant Financial Services Group, stated in its annual report that it has served 20.87 million small and micro businesses in China as of the end of 2019.
As part of the Star Plan launched in June 2018, the bank worked with over 400 financial partners to provide business loans to Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Eighty percent of MYbank loan users previously never received business loans from banks. The average outstanding loan size for MYbank users was approximately $4,300 (RMB 31,000), an increase of nearly 20% compared to last year, reflecting robust growth among SMEs in China. MYbank plans on extending credit lines to 70% of small and micro businesses in China in 2020, up from 50% in 2019.
The non-performing loan ratio for MYbank’s SME business loans has consistently been at around 1%, which is significantly lower than the industry average of 3.22% in 2019, according to the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission.
“Small and micro businesses constitute an essential pillar of our economy, and we are proud to have supported over 20 million small and micro businesses as of 2019. Our primary goal in 2020 is to continue to enable the sustainable growth of SMEs and empower them to overcome these challenging times and thrive,” MYbank’s president Jin Xiaolong said. “This underscores our confidence in the resilience of small enterprises across the country as they resume work and life.”
According to China’s State Administration for Market Regulation, as of February 2020, there are over 83.53 million individually owned businesses registered in China, employing over 200 million people in total. Over the past few years, SMEs have contributed to more than 60% of China’s gross domestic product and 80% of urban employment.
MYbank has implemented a series of measures to help small and micro business owners overcome the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, including:
- Providing 12-month loans totalling to about $1.4 billion (RMB 10 billion) to online merchants from Hubei Province registered on Taobao and Tmall. These loans are interest-free for the first three months, with interest rates lowered by 20% for the remaining nine months
- Providing 12-month loans totaling to about $1.4 billion (RMB 10 billion) to Taobao and Tmall merchants from outside Hubei, with interest rates also lowered by 20%
- Waiving interest rates for 360,000 offline micro merchants in Wuhan for the first month and cutting interest rates by 20% for Hubei merchants outside of the city
- Partnering with 100 banks to launch the Contactless Loans initiative to support 10 million SMEs as they resume operations and overcome the impact of COVID-19
Qiu Mengyi, a 26-year-old owner of a nail salon in Wuhan, applied for a business loan from MYbank when the city came out of lockdown in early April.
“Even though my business will not be completely back to normal in six months, the financial support we have received will help get us back on track,” Qiu said.
Mo Jiaxuan, a self-made owner of a claw machine company, also successfully applied for a business loan from MYbank. He also launched a claw machine mini-program on Alipay that enabled him to reach and engage with over 900 million users on the digital lifestyle platform and drive traffic to his online storefront.
MYbank’s Star Plan aims to strengthen SME financing over a three-year period. Through the plan, the bank will enable 1,000 financial institution partners to provide more cost-effective financing services to 30 million SMEs in China.
MYbank also pioneered the 310 model for SME financing, which offers collateral-free business loans that take less than three minutes to apply for on a mobile phone, less than one second to approve, and requires zero human intervention, using proprietary artificial intelligence and risk management technologies.
Re-disseminated by The Asian Banker
