OREANDA-NEWS. November 29, 2012. A few days ago, the administration of Hangzhou Sijiqing Clothing Market indicated at an interview:“The reason we choose Industrial Bank (IB) lies in the whole range of ‘Business Express' financial service solutions provided by them, including second differentiation of funds, flexible credit extension program, and professional service capacity, which accord with our business planning of growing stronger and bigger”, reported the press-centre of IB.

In fact, such famous professional markets across China as Hangzhou Sijiqing have always been the core areas for banks to compete against each other. Without excellent services hardly can IB stand out among other banks and become its major financial partner.

At the beginning of 2010, IB launched “Business Express”, the first exclusive financial service program for growing business owners, covering five special services “loan financing, payment and settlement, family wealth management, VIP service and exclusive card”. The program boasts the advantages of saving financial cost and information cost and facilitates small- and mini-sized business owners to enjoy one-stop financial services in IB that they need both in business and life, creating a new situation in the field of small- and mini-sized business targeted finance at home.

Then, the bank has actively adapted itself to the market demand and launched a number of innovative businesses including “Business Express” fast loan, “non-local pledge”, and “one business, two loans” in succession, keeping improving its product functions and specialized services. In 2012, against the increasing pressure of downward economy at home and under the backdrop that real economy faces great difficulties, IB launched the repayment method of “principal repayment in installments” for personal business loan. In this way, small- and mini-sized business owners may, based on their own capital recovery period, choose flexible principal repayment frequencies and repay the principals in stages within the loan term. Compared with the conventional principal repayment in a lump sum upon maturity or equal principal repayment, it can effectively alleviate the repayment pressure of small- and mini-sized businesses. Moreover, it reflects the social responsibility awareness and business development concept of the bank to grow together with small- and mini-sized businesses.

The perfection of product functions is the first step to improve the service capacity of “Business Express”, but the key is how to make good products available to business owners. Starting with “one-business district, two-chain and three-association”, IB promoted the strategy of “batch marketing” and basically reached all major markets, chambers of commerce and industrial associations with concentrated business owners in two years after the launching the product and a good start has been achieved. On that basis, the bank launched the large-scale campaign of “Business Express – A Tour to a Hundred Key Business Districts” in 2012, focusing on well-known wholesale markets or specialized business districts that have big trading volume of commodities, a large number of customers and rank front across China, and at the three levels of Head Office, branch and sub-branch, IB increased resource investment and concentrated on going deep into these districts so as to improve the cooperation with them. By the end of September, the personal business loans extended in the tour has reached RMB 5 billion.

Different from the previous “carpet bomb” marketing targeting at individual business owners, in the tour, the bank had any eye to the long-term development plans of these markets and designed a range of service schemes giving consideration to the interests of both these markets and business owners, assisting such markets to fulfill the objective of bringing prosperity to their business districts while supporting business owners to grow bigger and stronger. The extension of service scope means that a bank must have rapid response to markets, great strength in mobilizing resources and professional service skills. The difference in the service capacities of banks usually lies in this point.

Take Sijiqing Clothing Market as an example. With a full understanding to the anticipation that the market hoped to “improve the financial payment environment and build a new wholesale market”, IB Hangzhou Branch organized a first-rank team, upgraded the “Business Express” acquiring service, and designed the model of “funds aggregation and second differentiation”, in other words, the market may carry out unified management over all business owners who can get fast, secure and convenient settlement channels through second differentiation. In addition, the branch also provided “Sijipay”, an innovative program for personal business loans, and the mechanism for creating special wealth management products as supplementation. In this way, the branch could provide a whole range of services in a novel manner and finally won the favor of the market.

In recent years, business districts, mainly in the forms of commodity trading market, business block, logistics park, and e-commerce platform, have developed at a fast speed, and they have become important carriers for the existence and development of SMEs engaging in commercial and trading services. According to incomplete statistics, there are over 4,500 commodity trading markets with a trading volume over RMB 100 million across China, of which more than 70 have a trading volume over RMB 10 billion.

There is great potential for business district financing. To carry out business district financing continuously showcases that IB deepens its reform in specialization of retailing system and further “sinks” its service focus. It is reported that, according to the strategic deployment in the development planning of IB for the retailing business in the coming five year, the bank will endeavor to become the “leader of financial services to small- and mini-sized enterprises in China”. To fulfill the objective, IB is now improving its supporting policies and regulations, service flow and resource investment. As a result, more small- and mini-sized enterprises will benefit from such efforts.