Baoshang Bank launches lending platform to fight poverty

Baoshang Bank Limited, a joint-equity commercial bank based in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, launched a mobile phone lending platform to raise money for 15 business projects in the region to help local residents fight against poverty.

Liu Xin, assistant president of the bank, said on Thursday: "Our bank sent four employees to Inner Mongolia to work at the local government. They selected quality projects in that region according to our requirements. Once the projects receive approval for bank loans, their information will be published on our online lending platform. We'll mobilize our staff to lend money to the project initiators at a favorable one-year lending rate as low as 5 percent, making an effort to alleviate poverty."

The projects currently posted on the platform will raise money ranging from 60,000 to 500,000 yuan, in the aim of planting agricultural products including wheat, soybeans and hemp, raising livestock such as pigs, chickens and sheep, or purchasing agricultural machinery.

In order to control lending risks, the projects are open to loans from the employees of Baoshang Bank only. So far, 434 employees have lent 1,630,200 yuan, or 54 percent of the total amount of money to be raised, benefiting 51 local residents.

Jia Qizhen, deputy director of the China Banking Regulatory Commission's Inner Mongolia Office, said the regulator has pushed forward the establishment of 28 village and township banks in 57 poverty-stricken county-level divisions and counties, of which the number of banking institutions totaled 305.

As of the end of May, the balance of bank loans to agriculture-related businesses as well as small and medium-sized enterprises reached 709.7 billion yuan and 477.4 billion yuan respectively in Inner Mongolia.