OREANDA-NEWS. October 05, 2012. Real economy is the foundation of a country, so it is an obligation of a commercial bank to serve the real economy during its operation. As an important member of the Chinese financial system, Industrial Bank (IB) has always observed the requirements of national macroeconomic control and financial regulation consciously, reported the press-centre of IB.

Taking as its responsibility to serve the real economy and starting from providing all-sided, superior and efficient financial services to customers, the bank has kept further pushing forward the strategic transformation of business development model and profiting model, intensifying financial innovation and exploring the path of sustainable development to “perform social responsibilities with commercial activities and grow together with the real economy”.

Grasping the general economic development trend to boost the in-depth business transformation
During the “12th Five-Year Planning” period, China shoulders a range of strategic tasks such as stabilizing economic growth, optimizing economic structure and transforming development model. With the domestic financial reform entering the “deep water zone”, the finance sector obviously becomes increasingly market-oriented, internationalized and integrated.

Acclimatizing to the diversified and differentiated financial service demands of the real economy, IB has early put forward business transformation and differentiated development strategy in China , actively exploring and practicing the transformation of business development model and profiting model. In the field of conventional business, for instance, the bank has insisted on sinking its service gravity center, giving priority to the services to SMEs and retail customers, and mainly meeting the funds demands of large customers through direct financing. In the field of conventional business extension, IB has brought into play the core banking functions, energetically developing the new types of payment and settlement businesses such as trading finance, cash management and bank-bank platform. In the area of emerging businesses, IB has concentrated its efforts on developing wealth management, investment banking, investment banking and assets management, so as to improve its integrated financial service capacity to the real economy in a sustained manner.

This year, regarding reform and transformation as an important task, IB has improved its comprehensive capacity to serve the real economy with a range of fruitful reforms in the three business lines including retailing, corporate finance and financial market as well as the risk management and financial management systems.

Responding to the national development strategies to support the development of real economy
IB has always attached great importance to the development trend of economy and finance. While actively responding to the national economic development strategies, the bank has provided financial services and supports by focusing on the three centers, regional planning layout, key industries and projects, and SMEs.

First, the bank has carefully implemented the national macroeconomic and industrial restructuring policies, kept on increasing credit investment in the construction of key fields and major projects. By the end of June 2012, the number of large- and medium-sized customers to whom IB has lent credit support has reached 9,952, increasing by 3,537 over the beginning of this year, and the loan balance has amounted to RMB 510.663 billion, up by RMB 154.685 billion over the beginning of this year, lending vigorous support for the sustainable development of national key industries such as railway, iron and steel, air and space, power, petrochemical, non-ferrous metal, military industry, ship and medicine.

Second, the bank has strictly controlled the scale of credit to the industries of high energy consumption and heavy pollution, and seriously implemented the industrial policies and market admission criteria for such “two-high” industries, never making compromise to grant credit to any project failing to meet the environmental protection standard.

Third, supporting the Strategies for West China Development, the bank has kept extending its structural layout and increasing credit extension in West China. By the end of June 2012, IB has established 10 branches and 91 sub-branches in major western economic centers including Chongqing, Chengdu, Xi'an, Kunming, Urumchi, Nanning, and Huhhot, with a balance of loans over RMB 143 billion, and the proportion of credit assets in the area in the total of the bank has kept increasing. With all of these, the bank has lent vigorous support for the economic development of West China.

Fourth, IB has attached great weight to the financial services to small-sized enterprises. In terms of credit resources, the bank has arranged special loan scale for small-sized enterprises, giving priority to guarantee the loan demands of small-sized enterprises with total assets not exceeding RMB 100 million. In terms of credit extension mechanism, following the principles of “unified credit extension standard, professional risk management and hierarchical authorization and approval”, the bank has established a differentiated risk control mechanism customized to the marketing and risk control features of SME-oriented products. In terms of product and service, the bank has kept diversifying the products and services for small-sized enterprises to help them extend their financial channels and reduce the financial cost, so as to meet the varied financial service demands of SMEs at the different stages, namely initialization, growth and maturity, and IPO.

By the end of June 2012, the balance of self-defined loans (including discount) granted by IB to small-sized enterprises has amounted RMB 98.944 billion, increasing by 19.80% over the beginning of this year. The total number of customers has reached 267,700, up by 16.79% over the beginning of this year.

Pushing forward green credit actively to perform the responsibilities as a corporate citizen
IB has always taken it as an important grab for driving its own scientific development to perform its social responsibilities. Under the guidance of the unique social responsibility concept of “obtaining reasonable profits while bringing benefits to the stakeholders”, the bank has organically combined the performance of social responsibilities with innovation in business model, harvesting both economic benefits and social benefits.

As the first “Equator bank” as well as the forerunner and advocator of green finance in China , IB has exerted great efforts to develop green finance responding to the call of the state for energy conservation and emission reduction actively. From the launching the energy-efficient financing program, carbon finance and low-carbon theme credit card, to taking the lead in promising to follow the Equator Principles and to setting up specialized institution, the bank has established two product families including green finance based financing service and emission right finance service centering on the three main business sectors: energy-efficient financing, environment finance, and carbon finance, and formed a green finance business system throughout China, aggregating leading advantages in such aspects as market concept, social influence, product development, technical regulations, service fields and organizational guarantee.

By the end of June 2012, IB has totally extended over RMB 153.95 billion green finance based financing loans to over 1,000 enterprises with a variety of financial tools, with a balance of RMB 96.1 billion, and the growth rate has been over 200% each year. Moreover, it has successfully propelled to launch the first project following the Equator Principles, the first carbon assets pledged credit business and the first emission rights pledged credit business in China.

Exploring the “Road to Boost Rural Area” actively with innovative financial products and services
IB has always given attention to the development of “Agriculture, Rural Area and Farmers”, actively exploring effective paths to provide financial services to “Agriculture, Rural Area and Farmers”.

First, considering the characteristics of the agriculture-related industries and enterprises, the bank has provided all-sided financial support to such industries and enterprises by making full use of such products as trading finance and “IB Open Sesame”.

Second, the bank has kept promoting the cooperation with rural banks to improve the quality of financial services in the rural area. With over 15900 interconnected network outlets, IB bank-bank platform has helped rural banks at home to overcome payment and settlement bottlenecks and improve their financial service quality with such key cooperative products as agent access to the payment system and information system outsourcing.

In the future, IB will continue adhering to the guiding philosophy of Scientific Outlook on Development and grasping the core task of serving the real economy tightly to build, with great efforts, a mainstream banking group with “solid foundation, concerted structure, distinctive and specialized services, great strength and high responsibility”. It will unswervingly push forward its business transformation and reform innovation, improve the quality and level of services to the real economy in an all-round way, and construct a financial ecology which may have sound interaction with the real economy, complement each other and grow side by side, so as to make greater contribution for the sustainable and healthy development of the national economy.