The integration of science and technology and finance is an important driving force for high-quality economic and social development. According to the data, by the end of 2023, China Merchants Bank has served more than 140,000 technology enterprise customers, accounting for 23% of the major national technology enterprises. The balance of loans to science and technology enterprises exceeded 420 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of more than 80 billion yuan. The diversified and comprehensive services of science and technology finance, represented by bank financing, have effectively supported the development and growth of science and technology enterprises.
According to reports, since last year, China Merchants Bank has taken science and technology finance as the main direction of serving the real economy, further focused on serving science and technology enterprises, and focused on the three constructions of "systematic mechanism, professional ability, and ecological scenario" to do a good job in science and technology finance. China Merchants Bank attaches great importance to the construction of systematic mechanism, and has built a solid foundation for the development of science and technology finance business in the fields of organizational structure, mechanism improvement and brand building.
In May last year, the central bank and other eight ministries and commissions proposed to "guide the development of the existing science and technology innovation finance franchise, cultivate science and technology finance characteristic sub-branches, science and technology finance business departments and other franchised organizations focusing on serving scientific and technological innovation enterprises, and improve the differentiated management mechanism of franchise organizations". On January 12, the State Administration of Financial Supervision and Administration proposed to "encourage banking and insurance institutions to standardize the construction of professional or characteristic branches of science and technology finance in areas where science and technology resources are concentrated, and focus on providing financial services for science and technology enterprises".
It is understood that China Merchants Bank has set up a leading group for science and technology finance to promote the layout of key branches of science and technology finance in the country step by step and in batches. After comprehensively considering the regional economic development of science and technology finance, the potential of science and technology enterprises, and the best policy support, China Merchants Bank identified the first batch of 6 first-level branches in Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing and Hefei, as well as 1 second-level branch in Jiaxing, to take the lead in carrying out the pilot of science and technology finance, and then combined with the successful experience of the pilot branches, to replicate and promote the branches with a large number of science and technology enterprises, and gradually expand the scope of key branches of science and technology finance. As of the end of last year, 11 first-level branches have become key branches of science and technology finance, and 15 science and technology sub-branches have been set up, and the number will be further expanded to 20 this year. At the same time, China Merchants Bank has strengthened the construction of a professional team of science and technology finance, and equipped key branches with dedicated front, middle and back office service teams to continuously improve the service quality and efficiency of technology enterprises.
With the continuous development of science and technology finance, China Merchants Bank has improved the matching efficiency of finance and technology through the innovation and optimization of a series of mechanisms, and launched the "six specialized" working mechanisms of science and technology finance, including special teams, special products, special policies, special institutions, special evaluations and special processes, and required key branches to carry out specialized transformation and adaptive innovation for science and technology enterprises in terms of institutional teams, products and services, marketing organizations, business processes, policy evaluation and risk management.
According to China Merchants Bank, the "six specializations", as an exclusive supporting mechanism for science and technology finance, have played a key role in resource allocation, team building, capacity improvement, long-term incentives and process optimization. Last year, the business development of the 11 key branches of science and technology finance in the regions where they are located accelerated, and the scale of loans to science and technology enterprises increased by nearly 30% year-on-year, making a major contribution to the steady progress of science and technology finance of the whole bank, fully reflecting the driving effect of the "six special mechanisms" on business development.
In the view of China Merchants Bank, "technology + finance" is a bridge to help science and technology enterprises realize their beautiful vision, which not only supports the original intention of the vision of science and technology small and micro enterprises to draw a development blueprint and continue to grow and expand, but also supports the mission of science and technology leading enterprises to carry the national strategy and bravely climb the peak of science and technology. The original intention of China Merchants Bank to develop technology finance, just as the core concept declared by the bank at its technology finance brand conference, will accompany enterprises in every step of their growth with a perfect system and professional services on the journey of innovation and development of science and technology enterprises.
Text: Jiang Jiayuan, Zhao Xingxuan.