Why do banks look to small businesses?

Small business loans are a double-edged sword for banks. The opportunity is that there is a lot of demand from small business owners, and banks have good capital pricing power, and a single small amount of capital can get higher returns. The danger is that the mortality rate of small businesses is high, the integrity of business owners needs to be examined, and the items that companies can mortgage are limited. Research by CICC analyst Mao Junhua shows that since the beginning of this year, the operation of small and medium-sized enterprises in Jiangsu and Zhejiang has deteriorated, and the industry is concentrated in the manufacturing and wholesale and retail industries. The non-performing loans and non-performing loan ratios of banks such as Shenzhen Development Bank, Industrial Development and Minsheng continued to “double up”.

How to curb the crisis and expand the loan business to SMEs? Tailong Bank, China Merchants Bank and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank made some innovative explorations.

Tailong Bank: Using intensive staff to earn hard money

Zhao Xiaogang, a condiment wholesaler, went to three banks successively in order to borrow 200,000 yuan. He ran into a wall several times and almost lost his confidence. What he didn't expect was that after Xiao Huang, the account manager of Tailong Bank, came to know the situation, he put 200,000 credit loans into his account within three days, as working capital, which can be used at any time through online banking.

Small business people like Zhao Xiaogang are the main customers of Zhejiang Tailong Commercial Bank. 60% of the customers served by Tailong Bank are getting credit support from the bank for the first time. Looking at the Shanghai branch as a whole, the average loan per household is only about 750,000 yuan, and loans of less than 5 million yuan account for more than 95% of the bank's total loans. "As a regional commercial bank, Tailong's role is to allow small enterprises to get loans and have the ability to develop. Tailong has always been doing small business, of which more than 90% are less than 1 million. If employees do it This kind of large-scale business deviates from Tailong's positioning. Even if there are customers who want to loan 100 million yuan, we will definitely not do it." said Ying Zibin, president of Tailong Bank Shanghai Nanhui Branch. He believes that precise and focused market positioning is the key to the survival and development of any enterprise.

When most banks do small and micro enterprise loans, they basically use mortgage loans and take corporate mutual insurance to solve their credit needs. The Tailong Bank uses unsecured loans. After the lender applies, it only needs to provide a guarantor. "This approach seems bold. Will the small bosses fail to repay their debts? How can the bank's risks be controlled?" We randomly asked questions.

Take Zhao Xiaogang as an example. After Xiao Huang learned about his needs, he immediately went to his warehouse to do on-the-spot investigation. In addition to reviewing relevant materials, he also went to the surrounding trade market to inquire about his personality and reputation. In addition, Zhao Xiaogang's brother is also in business, and he logically became his guarantor, and Xiao Huang also investigated his brother. In this way, the field investigation was quickly passed. Zhao Xiaogang said: "I was rejected by several big banks before. I didn't expect Tailong to trust me so much." He was very moved when he got the money. During the interview, the reporter saw that Xiao Huang, like a friend, was doing homework with Zhao Xiaogang, and casually flipping through the list of goods he put on the table. Account managers visit clients every day, chat, and even tutor their children with homework. These seemingly "useless" chores have just become the key to Tailong Bank's loan risk control to small and micro enterprises.

Tylon insists on checking the "three meters", namely water meter, electricity meter and customs report, to grasp the real operation of the company, and adopt "checking three products", namely character, product and collateral, to understand the company from the side of the people living around the company. business conditions, and strictly control loan risks. Tailong also has an important experience, that is, the loan system is implemented with a “pen-by-pencil” system. It is reported that an old customer with a credit line of 1 million yuan once loaned a sum of 500,000 yuan in Tailong. In October of that year, he requested another loan of 500,000 yuan. But at that time, his previous loan of 500,000 yuan had not been repaid, and the new loan was firmly rejected.

Yan Qiang, President of Zhejiang Tailong Commercial Bank Shanghai Branch, revealed: "It has been proven that the risk of our small and micro enterprise loans has reached a controllable range. Non-performing loans."

Is Tailong's loan interest rate significantly better than other banks? Shanghai Qichuang Metal Products Co., Ltd., located in Nanhui Industrial Park, is the first loan customer issued by Tailong Nanhui Sub-branch, with an amount of 600,000. The general manager of the company, Gong Zhiyu, gave us an account, and the loan interest rate of Tailong Bank was indeed higher than the 6.1% benchmark interest rate of the central bank at that time. "But I have also contacted other banks, and some of them offer an interest rate of 6%. Even the mortgage, notarization, guarantee, and financing consultant fees, the combined cost is more than 1 cent. The small loan company gives The amount paid is 1 cent and 5, so the interest rate given by Tailong is still much lower, and there are no other fees, and the price is transparent.”

In 2010, when Tailong first arrived in Shanghai, almost no one knew about it, and he could only rely on customers. Managers run customers, which is in stark contrast to customers such as traditional banks coming to the door. The account manager Chen Jiang took the initiative to find Gong Zhiyu at first, but the latter thought it was a fantasy and did not believe that the bank still offered door-to-door service. "Tailong Bank branch offices are located in the suburbs, urban and rural areas, and close to small and micro enterprises. Hundreds of account managers have entered various specialized markets to conduct one-to-one communication." Ying Zibin said, "We guarantee that each branch will be established. The business area of the outlets reaches 15,002,000 square meters, and there are 14-17 counters. In order to facilitate individual industrial and commercial households to handle business, the business hours are also extended accordingly. As President Yan said, we are in the food stall business and provide five-star services. It is reported that Tailong Bank Shanghai Nanhui Sub-branch will also provide snacks for customers waiting for business at noon, which is evident in the considerate service.

Fu Xinhua, deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology, when talking about the absence of the problems that occurred in Wenzhou in Shanghai, believes that no matter large state-owned banks, joint-stock banks, or regional banks like Tailong, they have more branch offices. Institutions penetrated the front lines of SMEs. He believes that facing the front line of enterprises, the ability of financial institutions to manage and control enterprise risks has been improved, and the probability of credit lending will be higher.

4 billion deposits, 2.5 billion loans, 8,000 corporate customers, 500 relationship managers. Yan Qiang said that such a business scale may only correspond to thirty or forty people in general joint-stock banks. It is reported that the labor cost of Tailong Bank Shanghai Branch accounts for about 65%, while that of large commercial banks is only more than 30%. Yan Qiang said: "Small and micro services are labor-intensive in a sense, and large banks are a little discouraged after seeing such high costs." Tailong Bank's business experience is that it is not profitable, but relies on customers who issue loans. The number and speed of loan turnover have achieved steady growth in performance and profits. However, Yan Qiang also appealed: "We are also a small business, and we hope to get more help from the local government in terms of taxation and deposit funds."

China Merchants Bank: Reduce service costs with specialization

When most state-owned banks invested heavily in large enterprises and wore tinted glasses for small enterprises, China Merchants Bank took the lead in starting its own business among joint-stock banks. Practice boldly. In 2008, China Merchants Bank took the lead in establishing the first small enterprise credit institution in China, namely the Small Enterprise Credit Center. It is positioned to serve small business customers with assets under RMB 30 million and loans under RMB 5 million, develop the small business market with credit demands of less than RMB 10 million, and provide branches with mature corporate customers.

This trend is even more evident as the state fully promotes financial support policies for small and medium-sized enterprises. As of June 2012, the China Merchants Bank Small Business Credit Center had issued more than 85 billion small business loans, supporting more than 10,000 small and medium-sized enterprises, with a loan balance of over 37 billion and nearly 6,000 customers with loan balances. The growth rate of loans to the Bank's Small Enterprise Credit Center was significantly faster than that of the Bank's corporate loans and SME loans.

Yang Shaowei, President of China Merchants Bank Small Business Credit Center, said that China Merchants Bank has established a "specialized" model in line with the characteristics of small enterprises, established specialized institutions to focus on serving small enterprises, and built a professional team to serve small enterprises through targeted professional training. , greatly improving the service efficiency and capacity of small enterprises. For example, in the past, the traditional approval mode for bank loans was long and slow, generally taking a week or more. China Merchants Bank Small Business Credit Center has adjusted and simplified the credit process. Through post checks and balances, it not only prevents risks, but also improves efficiency. The loan approval time is generally reduced to two days.

Specialization can save costs. "Like loan reviewers, we do not set up each center, but focus on the headquarters for review; moreover, our middle and back offices are centralized, including file management, and loan review is also electronic. All All these can save costs. Our main cost is human resources. 50% of the professional team is distributed in various places as customer managers, and the other 20% are risk managers. The rest are concentrated in Suzhou, including loan reviewers, general personnel, operations Personnel and managers, etc."

In order to reduce loan risks, commercial banks traditionally require small businesses to have real estate and land collateral, but small businesses have limited collateral, which often prevents them from raising funds. China Merchants Bank has made a lot of exploration and innovation on collateral, such as launching intellectual property pledge loans for high-tech innovative enterprises, and launching order loans and accounts receivable pledge loans for companies upstream and downstream in the industry chain that have business financing needs. Customers have personalized financing needs, and we have launched special loans, such as professional market loans, brand chain loans and technology loans.

The order loan launched by China Merchants Bank, in the opinion of Lin Jiang, director of the Department of Finance and Taxation of Lingnan College of Sun Yat-sen University, is a bold innovation, which will play a certain role in helping the development of small and medium-sized enterprises. Jiangsu Nantong Yingxun Network Engineering Co., Ltd. is the beneficiary of this innovative loan. The company was established less than 3 years ago, with an initial registered capital of only 500,000 yuan, fixed assets of more than 200,000 yuan, and annual sales of only more than 10 million yuan. The credit center approved a loan of 10 million yuan.

Lin Jiang pointed out that small business loans are difficult to be divided into two parts. Banks decide whether to lend to enterprises or not, depending on the business conditions, assets and liabilities and other indicators of the enterprise, which is a comprehensive judgment. The key to an enterprise is to clarify the governance structure, product management and capital management capabilities, and strengthen the core competitiveness of the enterprise.

Shanghai Pudong Development Bank: Small business credit cultivates seeds for large business business

“In 2011, Fosun, one of the top ten private enterprises in China, had a profit of 3.4 billion, but when it was established in 1992, such as today’s Like many grass-roots small and micro enterprises, they encountered the bottleneck of capital. In 1993, Fosun applied for a loan of RMB 500,000 from Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, which was also the group's first loan. Now, under the condition that the conditions offered by various banks are similar, Fuxing Shanghai Pudong Development Bank will be the first choice." Shanghai Pudong Development Bank said.

In 2009, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank obtained the license for SME business issued by the China Banking Regulatory Commission. Compared with other joint-stock banks, SPDB's SME business has no first-mover advantage, and the trend of catching up is very obvious. "Currently, our bank has less than 40,000 SME credit customers. In the future, we hope to double the number of SMEs we serve." Wang Sunan, general manager of the SME Business Operation Center, told reporters.

“Doing SME business is expensive to operate. SPDB wants to be a partner of SMEs in the whole process, and can have follow-up sticky cooperation. In the early stage of incubation and cultivation of enterprises, investment comes first, and higher returns come later.” The idea of small business credit is very clear. In addition to the successful case of Fosun, last year, nearly 30 companies in Sichuan Province landed on the SME board and ChiNext, and 19 companies had their capital collection business in Shanghai Pudong Development Bank. These are the rewards of previous cultivation.

“When banks are doing small and micro businesses, we deeply feel that there are three asymmetries: First, information asymmetry. For example, a company told me that his repayment willingness was very strong, but his repayment ability was weak. Problem, but these words he said are not valid signals from the game, but valid signals are customs declaration forms, tax forms, water meters, and electricity meters; second, small and micro enterprises have high risks, and the relative risk cost is high. In addition, small and micro enterprises The operating cost of enterprises is high; third, it is up to the bank to solve the problem of how to balance the performance of small and micro account managers and large-scale account managers." Wang Sunan said, "Helping small and micro enterprises is related to the national economy and people's livelihood, SPDB decided to In 2012, 30% of the bank's loan quota will be invested in SME business, and innovative products and services will be launched successively."

This year, SPD has launched "three auspicious treasures": Yinyuanbao, Yintongbao, and Yinlianbao. It is mainly to carry out SME services in areas where SMEs are relatively concentrated, namely the "Silver Ingot" model for SMEs in the park, the "Yintongbao" model for SMEs in the trading market (circulation basin), and the upstream and downstream SMEs in the supply chain. "Silver Chain Treasure" mode.

At present, all banks are vying for this model, the key is who has the ability to find or occupy the channel to land. This means that SPDB must compete for resources with other joint-stock banks and regional banks that entered the field earlier. It is reported that SPDB has established cooperative relations with 1,000 third-party partners. Each partner provides batch and comprehensive financial services for small and medium-sized enterprises with common characteristics by sharing capital resources, policy resources, and information resources.