• Published on 20 August 2021
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WeBank records best financial growth and excellent digital service among peer banks

WeBank bolstered strong financial performance with its innovative digital transformation journey. It increased its operating income by 33.69% and posted return of assets of 1.6 and return on capital of 30.8.

• WeBank’s operating income grew by 33.69% YoY, the highest in the industry
• The bank led the creation of FISCO BCOS community which had been adopted by hundreds of application projects
• The bank’s AI team developed the world's first industrial grade Federated Learning Framework FATE (Federated AI Technology Enabler)

Beijing, 22 July 2021 – WeBank was awarded the Best Digital Bank in Asia Pacific and China at The Asian Banker International Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards 2021. The bank leveraged digital capabilities to improve customer experience.

WeBank, kakaobank, CBA, China Merchants Bank, CTBC, Ping An Bank, ICICI Bank, Liv by Emirates NBD, DBS and OCBC were the finalists for the Best Digital Bank award. WeBank is the first bank in China to provide a fully autonomous and controllable distributed ledger system that supports 750 million transactions per day at the peak, and served over 290 million of customers cumulatively.

Financial Performance: WeBank’s operating income grew by 33.69% YoY

WeBank posted the highest revenue growth of 48% year-on-year (YoY), followed by kakaobank and China Merchants Bank (CMB) while CTBC had modest growth. WeBank saw a return on assets of 1.6 and return on capital of 30.8.

The pandemic drove the growth of digital users. Among the banks, WeBank had the highest growth in digital customer base of 35% YoY. kakaobank, CMB and CTBC have seen modest growth in digital users.

Ecosystems and Open Banking: It led the creation of FISCO BCOS which had been adopted by hundreds of application projects

WeBank led the creation of FISCO BCOS (Be Credible, Open and Secure) community. FISCO BCOS has brought together more than 40,000 individual developers and around 2,000 companies and institutions to participate in the blockchain industry ecosystem. FISCO BCOS has been adopted by hundreds of application projects for practical research and development which covers government affairs, finance, public welfare, health care, education, transportation, copyright, recruitment, agriculture, etc. More than 120 applications have been operating actively in an ecosystemenvironment.

Five out of 10 award winning projects in the Fourth China blockchain development competition hosted by the China Electronics Standardization Institute are based on the FISCO BCOS platform. In the second developer competition hosted by BSN in China in 2020, 8 out of the 10 winning teams adopted FISCO BCOS.

The bank’s blockchain technology is also adopted by a health code application designed during COVID-19 pandemic to enable cross-border travel of citizens and securely recognise their information (without data transfer) between local government units at the point of control, or from one area to another.

Digital User: AI technologies improved the service efficiency and user experience of inclusive finance

WeBank’s artificial intelligence (AI) technologies such as facial recognition, natural language processing (NLP) , federated learning, and other technologies have promoted the intelligent transformation of customer service, and effectively improved back office functions such as anti- money laundering, identity fraud, and credit risk control. It was also applied in joint modelling of credit data of customer’s loans and microloans. It has solved 70% of the issues raised by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The joint modelling was able to realise $1 billion worth of enterprise loans.

As a "federated learning" technology leader, WeBank AI team developed the world's first industrial grade Federated Learning Framework FATE (Federated AI Technology Enabler). FATE has accumulated more than 800 well-known companies and more than 300 research institutions and university users worldwide.

About The Asian Banker International

The Asian Banker is the region’s most authoritative provider of strategic business intelligence to the financial services community. The global research company has offices in Singapore, Malaysia, Manila, Hong Kong, Beijing and Dubai, as well as representatives in London, New York and San Francisco. It has a business model that revolves around three core business lines: publications, research services and forums. The company’s website is www.theasianbanker.com.

You may visit the Excellence in Retail Financial Services page at http://awards.asianbankerforums.com/retailfinancial/.

For further information, you may get in touch with:

Mobasher Zein Kazmi

Head of Research
Tel: (+61) 452 514 145

mkazmi@theasianbanker.com