Rural inclusive finance welcomes new opportunities in internet development

The internet has already permeated every level of social life and has become an important platform for social, economic and cultural activities and personal life. Although agricultural and rural development should not expect that a single network will solve everything, as the internet gradually permeates agriculture, rural areas and farmers, the internet era of rural development is coming toward us, and is changing and leading agricultural production, rural development and farmers' lives. "Internet + rural development" will gradually become a blue-ocean market for internet development, and will become a new growth point for the internet industry.

In the course of rural financial development in our country, a series of problems are faced: a shortage of rural financial institutions, making it difficult for farmers to enjoy financial services; difficulties for farming households in raising funds, with distorted allocation of financial resources; a large outflow of rural funds; high financing costs and service costs; difficulties for farming households in obtaining loans and a lack of credit information; a high rate of bad debts in rural credit, with financial institutions "hoarding money and reluctant to lend"; and a mismatch between rural financial demand and services. Internet finance's entry into the rural market has made tremendous contributions in promoting the development of inclusive finance, raising the financing coverage rate of small and micro enterprises, and lowering the threshold for investment and wealth management. When the proportion of modernization and informatization in rural areas and agriculture reaches a certain level, internet finance can use big data to embed itself in the new rural economy, and can thereby bring enormous progress to the development of rural finance.

First, the rural social credit system will be gradually reconstructed, and the rural financial ecosystem will gradually enter a virtuous cycle. Under the internetization of rural development, all kinds of business information, information on participation in public affairs, credit information and so on of farming households and various economic entities such as cooperatives, family farms and small and micro enterprises will be systematically recorded and reflected. Maintaining integrity in all kinds of activities not only gives one the opportunity to obtain more opportunities to participate in market transactions, but also helps in obtaining bank financing. Therefore, integrity will gradually become the survival capital of rural society.

⟦NL> Second, as the internetization of rural development deepens, the various kinds of information that financial institutions need to evaluate customers when making loans will gradually accumulate, entering the so-called era of big data. This changes the situation of insufficient and asymmetric information that formal financial institutions have always faced in rural credit activities, and farming households, cooperatives, family farms, small and micro enterprises and others will have more opportunities to obtain financial services.

Third, as the internetization of rural development advances, various internet finance models linked to rural e-commerce and rural development, such as third-party payment, internet credit, crowdfunding and online sales of financial products, will gradually enter the rural sphere. Rural residents and small and micro enterprises will have more choices, opening a new door for rural residents' investment and financing and for the financing of small and micro enterprises.

Fourth, in the internet era, banks and other financial institutions and internet enterprises competing across boundaries will raise the degree of internet finance coverage in rural areas. Non-cash business can be completed through mobile terminals such as mobile phones, which not only helps reduce the cost of financial services to the rural real economy, with service efficiency also greatly improved, but also can improve the utility of rural residents' mobile phones, allowing them to handle financial business independently and on a self-service basis anytime and anywhere, which will bring a new experience of financial services.

However, although advancing the internetization of rural development brings new opportunities for rural inclusive finance, at the present stage certain difficulties still exist, mainly reflected in the fact that many rural residents still lack the necessary understanding of finance, and have even more problems of trust and adaptation regarding financial services carried out through mobile internet channels. At the same time, in some areas internet infrastructure construction still lags behind, and the smartphone penetration rate still needs to be raised. Therefore, promoting the internetization of rural development, and especially promoting rural internet finance, is a process of gradual realization, and its basic logical steps should be: (1) promote the construction of rural mobile internet infrastructure, and on this basis give priority to developing rural mobile internet finance; (2) rural inclusive finance education, which not only helps regulate the behavior of farming households, small and micro enterprises and other beneficiaries of inclusive finance and realize the protection of rural financial consumers, but also helps cultivate demand-side actors for the internetization of rural finance; (3) advance the development of rural e-commerce and e-government, and build an ecosystem to carry the operation of mobile internet finance; (4) on the basis of cultivating the agricultural industry chain, promote the combination of each link of agricultural industrialization with internet technology, which helps accumulate information and form a big data system.

It should be recognized that the development of rural internetization is a trend of the times. The development of this technological means will surely drive rural finance toward informatization, standardization, convenience and inclusiveness. We should guide it according to the situation, actively promote the development of this trend, pursue the advantages and avoid the disadvantages, and let the internet play a greater role in rural financial development.