Huatong Bank, the first private bank in Fujian province, opens to public on Jan 16. [Photo provided chinadaily.com.cn]

Huatong Bank, the first private bank in Fujian province, opened to public on Jan 16.

China has seen a rapid increase of private banks since March 2014. Huatong Bank has become the tenth one in the country.

The bank, with a registered capital of 2.4 billion yuan ($348.4 million), was jointly set up by eight famous Fujian companies spanning multiple fields including retail, manufacturing, education and real estate.

The bank's two main backers—supermarket chain Yonghui Superstore and the Yango Holdings Group—have invested 660 million yuan and 630 million yuan in the bank, respectively holding 27.5 percent and 26.25 percent of its shares.

Huatong Bank is designed to be a new type of Internet-based bank which will offer a combination of online and offline services.

Huatong is also expected to utilize internet technologies and big data to offer full-featured and high-standard financial services to small and micro-enterprises.