On April 28, 2020, IB released its Annual Sustainability Report 2019 (hereinafter referred to as the “Report”), which is the 12th year of disclosing its annual social responsibility report to the public consecutively.
The Report was prepared in line with such responsibility standards as the world’s leading UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the GRI Sustainability Reporting Standards of the Global Sustainability Standards Board and the Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB) of the United Nations Environment Programme, which comprehensively demonstrated IB’s CSR practice and achievements in 2019 in adhering to the concept of “integrating righteousness with profitability”, practicing social responsibility in ESG (environmental, social and governance) and actively promoting the high-quality economic and social development in China.
Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) has rated IB at A in environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspects on the basis of excellent performance in sustainable financial practice, corporate governance and information disclosure, which is the highest rank among the banks in mainland China.
“Commercial Bank + Investment Bank” injects financial investment for high-quality development
According to the Report, in 2019, IB stayed true to its founding mission of “exploring the ways for financial reforms and making more contributions to economic development”, accelerated its own supply-side structural reform, played the advantages of “Commercial Bank + Investment Bank”, increased the supply of high-quality finance, and contributed to the high-quality development of China’s economy. In 2019, IB’s balance of the financing in the entity enterprises was RMB 1,518.2 billion, its underwriting of debt financing tools for entity enterprises was nearly RMB 320 billion in terms of non-credit business, the investment in bonds for entity enterprises was RMB 106.7 billion; and the balance of financing for entity enterprises through off-balance sheet financial management was RMB 481.2 billion.
Manufacturing industry is the foundation of national economy and high-quality development of China’s economy. IB continuously improves the quality of financial supply and service to the manufacturing industry, especially to the advanced manufacturing industry, focuses on supporting advanced manufacturing industries which are in line with national strategies, industrial policies and industrial upgrading direction, and integrating the big data and artificial intelligence with real economy as well as new economic sectors such as product upgrading of traditional industries and technological transformation to promote accelerated transformation and upgrading of China’s manufacturing industry. By the end of 2019, the loan balance of IB’s loans for manufacturing industry had reached RMB 354.8 billion, with a corporate credit ratio of 19.71%, ranking the first among Chinese banks of the same or similar type in terms of balance and ratio, apart from maintaining an excellent asset quality and the lowest non-performing rate.
Science and technology innovation is an important impetus for high-quality development in a country. IB provides integrated financial solutions of “group linkage, equity and debt linkage, and cross-border linkage” to meet the differentiated financial service demands of science and innovation enterprises in different life cycles, such as the start-up, growth or maturity stage, so as to realize the accompanying growth with the enterprises. By the end of 2019, IB had served more than 27,000 science and innovation enterprises with a loan balance of about RMB 220 billion; among the 186 enterprises currently accepted by the Science and Innovation Board, IB has become a partner with about one-third of the science and innovation enterprises.
In order to solve the problem of difficult and expensive financing for private and small and micro enterprises, IB stays committed to the role of the main channel of indirect financing, enhances the long-term service mechanism of “daring to lend, being able to lend and willing to lend”, continuously improves the financing availability for private and small and micro enterprises, and reduces their financing costs. In 2019, IB’s balance of loans to private enterprises reached RMB 738.8 billion; its number of small and micro enterprise loans reached 81,700 with the loan balance of RMB 634.9 billion, ranking the top among same or similar type of Chinese banks in terms of loan scale.
As a national joint-stock bank headquartered in the core area of the “Maritime Silk Road”, IB makes use of its advantages and business characteristics of group operation, accelerates the construction of a global financial service system, and provides the long-term financial support and comprehensive financial services for the “Belt and Road Initiative”. In 2019, IB’s cross-border RMB settlement reached RMB 381.2 billion.
IB’s “financing + intelligence” integration model contributes to the green sustainable development
Clean water and green mountains are as valuable as the mountains of gold and silver. As a pioneer of practicing green finance in China, IB focuses on key areas such as green finance reform and innovation pilot zone, the “Belt and Road Initiative”, the Yangtze River protection area and Xiong’an New Area, and holds the strength of its green finance group to promote the construction of China’s green finance system and the development of green transformation so as to promote the nationwide battle to prevent and control pollution through its financial support. The Report shows that by the end of 2019, IB has provided green financing for 19,454 enterprises with a total amount of RMB 2,232.42 billion, fully exceeding the medium-term target of “two ten thousand” in financing balances and the number of customers ahead of the schedule; the green financing balance of IB’s subsidiary, IB Leasing and IB Trust was RMB 38.059 billion and RMB 5.089 billion respectively, and the balance of green business of Industrial Fund was RMB 11.290 billion.
In response to the demand for green transformation of real economy, IB has been strengthening the innovation of green finance products and cooperated with the China Clean Development Mechanism Fund under the Ministry of Finance to launch the innovative green investment business “Green Innovation Loan”, which provides low-cost funds for enterprises in the form of multi-party cooperation. At the same time, IB took the lead in formulating and releasing the Business Guideline for Green Supply Chain Finance s in mainland China, which provides a comprehensive green supply chain of financial services to SME customers in the green industry and put into effect a total of RMB 12.277 billion last year.
In order to promote green finance “Flowers Bloom in the Spring Gardens”, IB promotes the export of its professional capabilities based on its first-mover advantage, while the “financing + intelligence” integration advances the construction of China’s green finance system and accelerates the process of constructing ecological civilization. In mainland China, IB has actively performed its duties as the deputy secretary-general of the Green Finance Committee, joined such institutions as the Green Finance Standard Working Group and the Green Bond Standard Committee, participated in the formulation of several policies on domestic green finance system and the drafting of planning schemes for green finance reform and innovation pilot zones in several regions, and signed green finance cooperation agreements respectively with the governments of nine provinces (regions), such as Guizhou, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Xinjiang. In 2019, IB contracted the cooperation agreements on green finance in the said areas with a total amount of nearly RMB 570 billion, and the total amount of green finance business investment was over RMB 260 billion since signing the contract, and the balance of green financing was RMB 227.5 billion.
Internationally, as the deputy director unit of the Green Finance Cooperation Committee of the Asian Finance Cooperation Association and a member of the China-UK Green Finance Working Group, IB signed the “Belt and Road” Green Investment Initiative, served as the co-chair of “the Climate and Environmental Disclosure Working Group” and led the development of a climate and environmental information disclosure framework and helped the capacity building of signatories. It is also the first to sign the United Nations Principles for Responsible Banking to build a better world for mankind. IB has participated in the whole process of revising the Equator Principles (Fourth Edition), exchanged in-depth information with global counterparts on the practice of the Equator Principles in different countries, proposed Chinese solutions and contributed to the IB’s wisdom. By the end of 2019, IB judged the applicability of the Equator Principles in a total of 1,164 projects, of which the Equator Principles were applied in 491 projects with a total project investment of RMB 2.16 trillion involved/
Science and technology-enables the exploration of new models of inclusive finance services
The Report shows that in 2019, IB accelerated its digital transformation, actively applied financial technology to its operation and management, continued to promote experience enhancement, model innovation and cost reduction of financial services, effectively improved the efficiency of financial resource allocation and customer service capacity, and took a differentiated path of inclusive finance .
Insisting on doing “small” things and providing “specialized” services, IB has accelerated deep integration of technology and business, put into operation its self-developed online financing system for small and micro enterprises, innovated and launched diversified products such as “Three Musketeers for Small and Micro Enterprises”, “Revolving Loan” “E-Series” and “IB Butler” to establish and improve the products system for micro and small enterprises which integrates the settlement, financing and value-added services. Among these products, “IB Butler” enables micro and public business customers to complete a number of services such as approval of internal affairs, instant communication, transfer and remittance, and account management anywhere and anytime. By the end of 2019, the contracted customers of “IB Butler” exceeded 237,000 with a cumulative number of nearly 27 million transactions, totaling more than RMB 1 trillion in transactions.
As a leader in domestic bank-bank cooperation, IB has been upgrading and transforming its Bank-Bank Platform, continuously innovating and enriching its special products to help small and medium-sized financial institutions enhance their ability to serve the regional economy and people’s livelihood. The “IB Wealth Cloud” cooperation model connects its strong capital management capabilities with the sales channels of partner institutions, who has reached cooperation with 16 provincial-level cooperatives and many urban commercial banks in China, realizing the delivery of rich financial products and services from first- and second-tier cities to third- and fourth-tier cities and rural areas, and enabling residents in less developed areas with financial services to enjoy high-quality financial services, and has created conditions for residents to increase their incomes and revitalize rural areas.
Focusing on the pain points of people’s livelihood services, IB has gradually promoted a new service model of intelligent Internet finance ecosystem in medical, transport and educational industries, opening up a big step of intelligent life with one small step of efficiency improvement. And its subsidiary, IB Consumption Finance Corporation and Fujian Student Funding Management Center jointly developed the “Fujian Educational Support” App, which has made new breakthroughs in financial technology to promote “Accurate Financial Support for Education” in Fujian Province. So far, the app has covered 436 high schools and 160 secondary schools, with a total of nearly 700,000 registrants in the past two years since 2018.
“IB Cares” gathers loves and care to undertake the social responsibility
2020 is the decisive year for poverty alleviation and construction of a moderately prosperous society. According to the Report, in 2019, IB made concerted efforts in industrial poverty alleviation, channel poverty alleviation, product poverty alleviation, targeted poverty alleviation and education poverty alleviation, and explored an effective sustainable financial poverty alleviation model with IB characteristics. Since 2012, IB has donated more than RMB 40 million for poverty alleviation in Zhenghe County of Fujian Province, and the balance of loans for precise poverty alleviation at the end of the year totaled RMB 14.529 billion, with an increase of 20.08% compared with the beginning of the year, driving and serving about 130,000 poor population with established files and cards.
At the same time, IB set up the “IB Cares” special column through its own e-commerce platform, expanded the sales of products online and offline, and helped local people increase their production and incomes. By the end of 2019, a total of 10 branches have had 256 e-commerce poverty alleviation products on the “IB Cares” column, including the main e-commerce poverty alleviation products such as Yungen Tea of Zhenghe County from Fujian, Teas of Erwu Zones (three towns of Zhenghe County), and sweet apples of Aksu from Xinjiang and. Through continuous capacity generation, IB has helped more poor people to become richer.
IB actively practices public interest and charity work, and continues to improve its long-term effective public interest and charity mechanism of three-in-one model “donation for education”, “disaster relief” and “helping the poor and needy”. In 2019, IB’s external donation exceeded RMB 36 million. In terms of “donation for education”, IB has donated to students of 6,000 persons/times in five colleges and universities for 12 years, with a total amount of RMB 25 million, since the establishment of “IB Cares Charity Stipend” in 2007, which is one of the social support projects in Fujian Province with the longest funding in duration, the biggest donation in amount and most extensive in coverage.
Since this year, in the face of the sudden Covid-19, IB quickly responded and implemented the decision and deployment of the Party Central Committee, resolutely fought the three battles of “stabilizing the development, ensuring the safety and helping the epidemic prevention and control”, focused on the key points, difficulties and pain points of financial services demanded in the process of epidemic prevention and control and resumption of work and production, and further strengthened its financial support and service capacity to minimize the impact of the epidemic on enterprises, economic and social development, and fully supported the work of “stability in six key areas”. Up to now, IB Group has donated a total of nearly RMB 60 million to fight against the epidemic, and provided credit support of over RMB 30 billion for the epidemic prevention and control and the resumption of work and production, and granted the credit of RMB 8.203 billion to 426 small and medium-sized enterprises related to epidemic prevention and control.