OREANDA-NEWS. March 14, 2014. Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) stepped up the strategic plan of banking services for small and micro enterprises to improve its services.

As of the end of 2013, ABC boasted 226,000 small and micro business credit customers, up 72,000 over the year beginning, with a loan balance of RMB813.3 billion, up RMB157.1 billion and RMB46.9 billion over the year beginning and previous year, respectively. Its loan growth rate stood at 23.94%, leading other large commercial banks in terms of loan increase and increment. Meanwhile, with decreasing non-performing loan to small and micro enterprises and NPL ratio, ABC met the regulatory requirement on loan growth and increment, achieving rapid and healthy development of banking services for these enterprises.

Improving relevant policies and regulations. In 2013, ABC improved its credit service to make breakthroughs in banking services for small and micro enterprises. It issued a series of supporting policies like the Opinions on the Credit Support for Small and Micro Enterprises, Measures for the Credit Management of Small and Micro Enterprises and Guidelines on the Review of Small and Micro Enterprise Credit (Provisional).

Innovating batch marketing service mode. In 2013, ABC launched the "batch credit" approval mode for small and micro enterprises, thereby simplifying the credit approval procedures and promoting the collective marketing in branches. “In Hunan, ABC formulated service guidelines on the supply chain, industrial cluster and major markets and initiated the "135 Project" by selecting 10 special markets, 30 parks and 50 core customers for batch services; in Shandong, ABC stepped up support for small and micro enterprises in state-level and provincial development zones, with a signing rate of over 80%; in Chongqing, ABC established bank-enterprise, bank-market, bank-industrial park, bank-commerce and bank-association modes based on industrial cluster, special market, industrial park, industrial chain and industrial association; in Ningxia, service teams of ABC visited over 1,200 small and micro enterprises in large markets like logistics park and furniture and building material markets to provide one-on-one banking services.

Accelerating R&D and promotion of featured business. ABC launched featured products like account receivables pledge financing and the service mode to develop loans to small and micro enterprises through loans to large enterprises and promote loans to large enterprises with loans to small and micro enterprises after studying the supply chain finance service mode suitable for small and micro enterprises. In this way, ABC met the financial demands of downstream and upstream small and micro enterprises in the large and medium enterprise industrial chain. The Head Office innovated services with new technology and instruments by formulating the working plan for small and micro business Internet financing and expanding the pilot coverage of online application for small and micro business loans and encouraged branches to develop featured products.

ABC launched featured businesses like small-business bill express, Jinketong, Jinyimian, Dengling credit loan and government procurement and financial service plans like "Longteng Program" and "Xingguang Program" in Tianjin, Jiangsu, Beijing and Guangdong.
Improving outlet services. In 2013, ABC organized training programs for heads and customer managers of county-level sub-branches and heads and lobby managers of outlets to build up their service abilities and build outlets into financial service platforms for small and micro enterprises. ABC set up a training system of corporate marketing competency for corporate marketing staff in Shanghai outlets, training 1,015 employees in 2013; in Shenzhen, ABC introduced standard service procedures for quality small-businesses to unify the category of small and micro enterprises and established the small-business service regular reporting system to avoid zero small-business credit balance.