The key to rural financial reform lies in innovation
2015 County-level Finance Annual Conference proposes: The key to rural financial reform lies in innovation
"County-level economic development cannot be separated from financial support. At present, China's economy is in a critical period of structural adjustment. Traditional industries such as the energy industry and manufacturing are generally plagued by overcapacity, while emerging industries are clearly on the rise. This means that rural financial institutions need to choose the right investment direction and innovate financial products around emerging demand, so as to better guide the development of the rural real economy." At the recently held 2015 China County-level Finance Annual Conference, Feng Haifa, director of the Economic Bureau of the Central Policy Research Office, said.
The 2015 China County-level Finance Annual Conference was jointly held by the County-level Economic Research Center of Economic Daily, China County-level Economic News, and the Beijing Regional Economic Society. Participating experts, scholars, and representatives of grassroots rural banks held lively discussions on topics such as "development opportunities for small and medium-sized banks under reform" and "development strategies and corporate governance of small and medium-sized financial institutions." The conference proposed that advancing rural financial reform and solving the difficulties of agriculture, rural areas, and farmers in obtaining loans and of banks in extending loans lies in innovation.
"Under the new normal of a transforming economic growth model, county-level small and medium-sized financial institutions must all the more uphold and practice the concept of innovative finance." Wang Shuguang, vice dean of the School of Economics and Management at Peking University, believes that rural financial innovation should focus on institutional mechanisms, product processes, and cultural brands in all aspects, and especially should draw on internet thinking models and technological means, use big data to tap potential customers and achieve automatic credit screening, and combine the offline advantages of being close to rural society with the online advantages of internet finance, so that financial services become more precise and efficient.
During the annual conference, the "Leading Banks in Serving China's County-level Economy" were also announced. 20 county-level financial institutions, including Jiangsu Yixing Rural Commercial Bank, Shandong Haiyang Rural Commercial Bank, Guizhou Ziyun Rural Commercial Bank, and Hebei Tangshan Rural Commercial Bank, received the title of "Leading Banks in Serving China's County-level Economy."
It is reported that the selection activity for "Leading Banks in Serving China's County-level Economy" was launched in September this year. The selection committee used various data from financial institutions in the top 100 counties (cities) for county-level economy as basic materials, combined them with excellent county-level institutions recommended by the Agricultural Bank of China and the rural credit cooperative systems in major agricultural provinces, and also took into account eligible units that actively applied, carrying out layer-by-layer screening and identification, and then repeated demonstration, ensuring the authority and fairness of the selection results.