State-owned lender ramps up efforts for bigger role in rural revitalization

Postal Savings Bank of China stepped up financial support for the nation's rural revitalization campaign by giving full play to the synergistic effect of the State-owned bank and its parent company China Post.

Relying on its advantages in logistics, information and capital flows, China Post, a State-owned enterprise offering official postal services in China, joined efforts with PSBC to provide express delivery and financial and e-commerce services, with the aim of helping rural clients tackle financing, sales and logistics challenges, said Qiang Bin, deputy general manager of the Beijing branch of China Post.

Many rural cooperatives with characteristic high-quality agricultural products, such as watermelons in the Daxing district of Beijing and vegetables in the Yanqing district of Beijing, saw a surge in sales through the online and offline distribution channels of China Post. Meanwhile, the cooperatives also received loans from PSBC.

Beijing Guangyuan Fumin Farmers' Cooperative, which specializes in agricultural and sideline products, obtained a loan of 700,000 yuan ($107,720) from PSBC's subbranch in Daxing district, apart from receiving e-commerce and logistics services from China Post. It now sells watermelons at the online store of the postal service provider, said Li Tiejun, manager of the farmers' cooperative.

Last year, the Beijing branch of China Post and the Beijing Pinggu district government jointly held a livestreaming session for locally grown peaches. During the session which received 280,000 views, 28,000 boxes of peaches were sold, Qiang said.

"Our bank strengthened, widened and deepened financial support for rural revitalization this year," said Du Chunye, president of PSBC's Beijing branch. "We offered agribusiness financial services at the grassroots level in urban and suburban areas by jointly establishing express lending service centers for small businesses and agribusiness financial service stations, together with the Beijing Local Financial Supervision and Administration."

With a focus on core businesses in various supply chains, PSBC is striving to help farmers in the upstream and downstream supply chains increase their incomes. By the end of June, the outstanding balance of agro-related loans offered by its Beijing branch was nearly 13 billion yuan, Du said.

The bank also increased the offering of unsecured loans that do not require any type of collateral to a growing number of micro and small businesses by integrating their credit information gained through internal and external sources. Its Beijing branch had provided about 117 billion yuan of financing to nearly 20,000 micro and small businesses by the end of June.

During the COVID-19 outbreak, PSBC's Beijing branch offered 1.85 billion yuan in anti-pandemic loans to small and medium-sized enterprises and took lending risk mitigation measures to help 364 small businesses get through tough times.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Beijing Oriksson Energy Saving Environmental Protection Technology Co Ltd, a high-tech enterprise which specializes in the development, manufacturing and construction of energy-efficient wall systems, saw a sharp increase in cancellations of its orders.

"I even had difficulties in paying my employees when I received a phone call from PSBC's subbranch in Fangshan district of Beijing. The bank offered me a loan of 5 million yuan and my business survived. That phone ring is the best sound I've ever heard," said Zhao Hongyu, general manager of Oriksson.

As China's economy is gradually recovering from COVID-19, the company's orders have been arranged until next year, Zhao said.