China's state banks foray into e-commerce

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2013-03-08

China Construction Bank in Beijing. (Photo/Xinhua)

For operators in the China's banking industry, the earlier they set up an online platform, the more possible it becomes for them to perform well in the market. More commercial banks in China are catching on to this pattern and promoting their e-commerce businesses, Chinese-language magazine Business Value reports.

China Construction Bank is the first major Chinese bank to venture into the e-commerce sector.

An era of competition between e-commerce and financial industries and their integration is expected to commence as a result, the report said.

After carrying out six-month trials, the bank launched its e-commerce financial services platform, which integrates finance with e-commerce services, on Jan. 18.

The bank's online platform will be divided into three segments: business-to-business, business-to-consumer, and real estate marketing services.

While most state banks are adopting a brand new model for combining the three business platforms, the most profitable business segment for them is B2B business, the report noted.

CBC's online platform will focus on providing services to core business suppliers. For instance, Haier Group owns 2,000 upstream and downstream companies. How it provides financial services to such big enterprises will be an important task for CBC's online platform.

On the other hand, a number of online retailers are also expanding into the financial sector. For instance, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group is embarking on a major reorganization of its business structure that will reorganize its three major business categories: platform, finance and data.

360buy Jingdong Mall — the biggest 3C online retailer in China's B2C market — will set up its own system for providing financial services, as well as a financial company.

In addition, Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China had sold up to 4 billion yuan (US$64 million) in insurance policies and services via the e-commerce sales channel in 2012, while several other banks had tried to provide their services through the internet.

Online banking was previously siphoned off to a small sector in domestic banking which employed fewer staff members and attracted little attention.

This mode of thinking is quickly becoming outdated. CBC Mobile Banking, for example, has 80 million users and its online bank has 110 million users.

CBC ventured into the e-commerce space to seek more clients, get clients real-time transaction information, earn high profit margins from lending and expand its business scope.