Shanghai Rural Commercial Bank :Innovating in and optimizing financial products to serve the ＂three rural＂ and rural revitalization

Company profile
 
SRCB (or "SRCB") was established on August 25, 2005, Headquartered in Shanghai, SRCB was reincorporated from 50-year-old Shanghai Rural Credit Cooperatives, and it turned into a corporate commercial bank Co., Ltd.   SRCB has always adhered to the market orientation of “serving the community and supporting agriculture and small businesses”, taken roots local community and served urban and rural areas. Since restructuring, it has adhered to the customer-centered principle to promote business transformation, and business development with comprehensive marketing methods, promoting innovative financial products for customers and improving customer experience with efficient process management, by which its customer service capabilities has been comprehensively improved, and facilitates to build itself as a service-oriented bank.
 
During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, SRCB actively practiced inclusive finance by serving Shanghai to build itself as an international financial center and accelerating the integration of urban and rural areas. Through exploring suburban agricultural market, SRCB met the financial needs in rural urbanization, agricultural modernization, and citizenization, creating a new “Sannong(agriculture, rural areas and farmers)” financial service system with Shanghai characteristics. At present, SRCB is the commercial bank with the highest proportion of agricultural loans and the largest market share in Shanghai.
 
Challenges
 
At present, the disadvantages that hinder the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, the basic realization of modernization, and the realization of enduring peace and stability of the country include the poor quality and efficiency of agricultural development, the lack of momentum for farmers to increase their income and the weak self-development ability of rural areas. The issues relating to agriculture, rural areas and farmers cannot be solved without the irrigation of running water, that is, the finance. For a long time, the financial service mechanism of agricultural modernization is not sound; the rural financial supply and financial services are insufficient; and the rural population lacks sufficient credit data. These problems make it difficult for the agricultural operators to enter the credit market, and restrict the agricultural modernization and the solution of the issues relating to agriculture, rural areas and farmers.
 
Solutions
 
As the first joint-stock commercial bank established on the basis of provincial rural credit cooperative, SRCB has adhered to the guiding ideology of "being rooted in improving the people's livelihood, focusing on the weak areas, deepening financial innovation and promoting inclusive construction", since it was founded 13 years ago. It has made great efforts to increase the supply of inclusive financial services and products, significantly improved the financial service in the weak field of "three rural" and served the local urban agriculture, thus becoming the main force of "three rural" financial services in Shanghai.
 
Attaching equal importance to preferential agricultural policies and products
 
In accordance with the requirements of supply-side structural reform in agriculture, SRCB has optimized its credit policy, increased its credit support and stuck to a preferential interest rate for loans related to agriculture. The bank implements the benchmark interest rate for loans to farmer cooperative under the guarantee of financial fund. For other types of "three rural" related credit business, it also carries out at a more preferential interest rate than that for general enterprises to benefit agriculture and farmers. In terms of credit investment, priority is given to meeting the credit demand for promoting the economic development of "three rural" and to supporting businesses at all links in the modern agricultural industrial chain. The bank also actively supports the construction of the national demonstration area of modern agriculture in Shanghai, and gives priority to supporting various new agricultural operators, especially the key leading enterprises of national and municipal agricultural industrialization. It gives priority to supporting the "4+1" spatial region of Shanghai's comprehensive agricultural layout plan, focuses on getting involved in the 13th five-year plan for modern agriculture in Shanghai, and gives priority to supporting all links in the modern agricultural industrial chain and the new rural infrastructure construction, like the construction of beautiful villages and country parks.
 
To better meet the market demand and to satisfy the requirements of informatization, integration and all routing accompanying the rapid development of Shanghai's modern urban agriculture, SRCB has kept innovating service means in the past three years. It has tailored exclusive financial products for the "three rural" and introduced rural land management right mortgage loan and agricultural revolving loan, which not only enriches agricultural financial products, but also effectively reduces the financing cost of farmers.
 
In the first half of 2017, SRCB launched the brand mortgage insurance loan project for new agricultural operating entities in Shanghai. The bank innovatively introduced the government-bank-insurance institution joint collaboration mode, targeted for the entities owning "Shanghai famous trademarks" or "Shanghai famous brand products". According to the ripening of crops of the applying enterprises, the agricultural and sideline products acquisition season, the production and processing and the actual capital needed in the previous years, the bank resorts to brand value to provides financial support to the seasonal and temporary capital needs of agricultural enterprises and organizations and supports it with a flexible term set. This project breaks through the bottleneck of traditional financing mode, gives full play to the intangible asset value of agricultural enterprise brands, and enters a higher level in finance serving agriculture.
 
Establishing cross-border cooperation to promote agriculture
 
With the declining proportion of traditional agriculture in Shanghai, SRCB has been promoting the cross-border common development of agriculture and multi-fields, integrating various financial resources, giving play to the aggregation effect of financial resources, and built a service platform for cross-border operation. SRCB works together with Anxin Agricultural Insurance and has launched the micro-credit guarantee insurance business, which now accounts for about 95% of the market in Shanghai. Combining Internet with Agriculture and taking Xinhushang and online shopping mall as the starting point, the bank has built an online trading platform for agriculture-related enterprises to further strengthen all-round cooperation between banks and enterprises. It combines agriculture with science and technology and has built the featured "three rural" science and technology service. It has fostered a batch of high-growth agricultural science and technology enterprises through integrating science and technology financial services and agricultural financial service means. By the end of 2017, SRCB had provided a loan of about 6 billion yuan to agricultural science and technology enterprises, practicing its responsibility to support agriculture and micro-business, and fostering a batch of high-tech agricultural enterprises.
 
Expanding channels to support agriculture
 
SRCB continues to improve the basic financial service capacity of exurbs and takes the launching of self-service machines and tools and the optimization of Internet financial applications as important measures to support the construction of new rural areas. In addition, SRCB has also signed community co-construction agreements with some rural areas, forming a "branch" and "village committee" financial service co-construction relationship. It visits villages from time to time to promote financial knowledge in forms of financial lectures, on-site consultation and handing out financial sheets, etc., so as to improve rural residents' financial literacy and risk prevention awareness.
 
Achievement
 
Social benefit
 
At the end of 2017, the agriculture-related loans of SRCB were 64.751 billion yuan, among which the loans to farmers were 9.518 billion yuan, the loans to rural enterprises and various organizations were 5.325 billion yuan, and the loans to urban enterprises and various agricultural organizations were 4.9909 billion yuan, and it had set 242 "three rural" branches and installed 1368 sets of "three rural" self-service machines and tools. SRCB continues to increase agriculture-related loans, support new agricultural operators, drive farmers to increase income and get rich, and improve rural financial infrastructure, like launching convenience service facilities, to improve the life of mass farmers.
 
Economic benefit
 
Serving “Sannong” and practicing inclusive finance are not only specific measures to respond to the country’s implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, but also provide farmers with convenient basic financial services and form an all-round, multi-level and wide-coverage inclusive financial system. It has expanded the business channels for SRCB, enriched its product range, established a good responsible image and brought certain economic benefits, achieving a win-win result between the company and the society.
 
Prospect
 
SRCB hopes to continue to innovate in serving the “Sannong” business model, give full play to the leading role of financial capital, and effectively strengthen the “Sannong” financial services around credit policy, service channels and product innovation. By practicing inclusive finance, it will support and serve each key area in rural revitalization and bring a new chapter for the prosperity of the agricultural industry, the happy and livable rural areas, and the affluent life of farmers.