strengthening the coordination of industrial chain to resume production is the key to comprehensively and deeply promote the resumption of production. supply chain finance is an important step for financial institutions to effectively support small and micro enterprises in the chain. at a press conference held by the state council information office on march 22, zhou liang, vice chairman of the china banking insurance regulatory commission (circ), stressed that supply chain finance should be vigorously developed, liquidity pressure of small and micro businesses in the upstream and downstream should be alleviated, and enterprises should be supported to carry out pledge financing with receivables, warehouse receipts and inventories.
financial times reporters have learned that with the help of fintech, financial institutions have stepped up innovation and launched online supply chain financial services, which have made useful explorations to ease the financing difficulties of smes in the supply chain.
online supply chain finance
the industrial chain is linked, a link block, upstream and downstream enterprises are unable to operate. to solve the financial problems of small, medium and micro enterprises in the industrial chain is the key to promote the resumption of production.
"a lot of sme financing involves a payment days issue of receivables. under the impact of the epidemic, payment days of some upstream smes will be prolonged. in this case, these smes are likely to have the problem of capital chain break. if this problem is not properly solved, it will be transmitted to the suppliers in the downstream of the supply chain and further affect the resumption of work and production of enterprises." there are industry analysis said.
in order to support smes to resume production and operation as soon as possible and the normal and orderly operation of supply chain, efficient and accurate supply chain financial services are essential. as an integral part of the digitization process, the banking industry actively explored online supply chain finance during the emergency period, and through online and non-contact methods, it played a positive role in solving the difficulty and high cost of financing for small and medium-sized enterprises.
"since the beginning of this year, the postal savings bank has provided more than 1,300 financing transactions of nearly 2.2 billion yuan to more than 200 smes through the online supply chain finance platform." the relevant person in charge of post office bank recently said in an interview with the ft journalist, resistance to disease, post office bank financial services, and vigorously promote supply chain with core enterprise interconnection cooperation, guidance to the enterprises by "easy chain mail" online supply chain financial service platform launched online financing application, for the chain to return to work and production of small and medium-sized enterprises to solve the tension of capital turnover.
block chain technology to help service upgrade
under the epidemic situation, the risk assessment and management of traditional lending cannot adapt to the requirements of current financial activities, which forces financial institutions to change the service mode of supply chain finance business. industry insiders believe that under the power of science and technology, the online supply chain finance has realized the transformation and upgrading in many aspects, including the online business operation, the interconnection of information, and the most important breakthrough is the risk control.
"the overlapping application of a large number of fintech tools has made it possible to identify, measure and control risks through risk control models instead of relying entirely on on-site and off-site inspections. in addition, the online supply chain finance has realized the capital control of the whole process by using account products." cicc pay supply chain finance director ding xiao said.
it is worth noting that the risk control problem of supply chain finance mainly focuses on the authenticity of the trade background, which cannot be solved simply by the online business. traditional supply chain finance business needs to be built on the basis of timeliness, transparency, traceability and correlation management. therefore, the introduction of block chain technology to serve the upstream and downstream has become an important direction.
"under the block chain architecture, the system can restrict the behavior of trade participants in the supply chain, and then integrate the relevant transaction data into the chain to form online structured and complete records of basic contracts, documents, payments, etc., to prove the authenticity of trade behaviors." a bank insider said.
the application of blockchain technology in the supply chain financial system has been attempted by the domestic banking industry, which has played an important role in the outbreak.
for example, as a core enterprise in the industrial chain, yasha holdings and its subsidiaries actively participate in the prevention and control of the epidemic, which also drives the resumption of work and production of a large number of small and medium-sized building materials suppliers and construction units upstream and downstream. these small and medium-sized enterprises generally face the special period of industrial chain linkage, capital turnover and other problems. after the issuance of bonds to enhance their liquidity, the company also reached out a helping hand to them timely through the "receivables chain" platform of zheshang bank.
the platform constructed by zeshang bank with the block chain technology gives full play to the features of the block chain technology that information sharing can be trusted, cannot be tampered with and can be traced back, and transforms the settled receivables in the supply chain into efficient and safe block chain receivables to activate. yasha holdings and its subsidiaries shall issue block chain receivables online to repay the payment when purchasing from upstream suppliers. the latter receives a blockchain receivables, which can be transferred online in real time to zheshang bank for liquidity.
this "advance payment" loaded with block chain technology helps the upstream and downstream enterprises to get the payment in time, effectively reducing the pressure of cash flow and financing costs. during the outbreak, the company has issued blockchain receivables to 23 upstream suppliers with a total amount of 6.18 million yuan.
there is still much room for innovation in the future
in the long run, supply chain finance, as an effective tool to alleviate the difficulty and high cost of financing for smes, can effectively help optimize and upgrade the industrial chain and promote the healthy and stable development of the economy. however, some industry insiders believe that china's online supply chain finance is still in the initial stage of development, the role of supply chain finance has not been fully played, there is still a lot of room for improvement in the future.
"going online refers to processes such as business development and processing that are handled partly or entirely via the internet. however, supply chain finance itself is a kind of financial business, which also needs to comply with some requirements of the supervision on financial business, such as the issue of public account opening, the current use of in-person signed or door-to-door account opening. "if you go through online identification and open an account online, it's technically possible, but in practice it still requires regulatory approval." ding xiao thinks.
experts say the outbreak has objectively accelerated the development of online supply chain finance, which will play a positive role in further breaking through certain restrictions, such as paying more attention to the role of risk control model and the online account opening problem of financing customers.
during the epidemic, the postal savings bank explored new attempts at online supply chain finance. in terms of business handling, the postal savings bank added "remote interview, remote signature" and other services to guide customers to use video tools to carry out remote interview and face-to-face signature, to achieve rapid loans to customers, and to help enterprises return to the normal track of production and operation as soon as possible.
in addition, for the cross-regional supply chain finance business, postal savings bank encourages the business through the internal syndicate. for example, during the epidemic period, the postal savings bank carried out the financing lease factoring business for an airline company. the handling branch and the branch where the core enterprise is located worked together to implement the key links such as contract signing and receivables confirmation respectively, so as to promote the implementation of this financial service.
source: china financial news