In April 2019, the Industrial Bank (IB) released the Annual Sustainability Report 2018 (hereinafter referred to as the “Report”), which is the report that IB disclosed its social responsibility for 11 consecutive years.
The Report is based on the theme of “integrating righteousness with profitability”, and is prepared in reference to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), GRI Standards of the Global Sustainability Standards Board (GSSB), Equator Principles (Third Edition), fully demonstrated IB’s practice and effectiveness in adhering to the organic unity of corporate economic benefit and corporate social responsibility, serving the needs of entities and creating a bright life in the previous year.
Adhering to the “main channel” and striving to make more contributions to economic development
“Exploring ways for financial reforms and making more contributions to economic development” is the IB’s mission and responsibility since its foundation. In 2018, IB gave full play to the advantages of group management, provided customers with financial service schemes covering the whole life cycle and all products by using diversified financing tools, continuously increased and optimized financial supply, focused on improving the service capacity of private economy, helped the construction of the “Belt and Road Initiative”, and took new steps on the road of promoting high-quality economic development in China.
IB has increased the optimization of institutional layout and expanded the service radius. By the end of 2018, it has set up 145 branches and 2,032 sub-branches nationwide, achieving a full coverage of outlets in all provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in mainland China, of which the branches in economically developing areas of the central and western China accounted for about 40%. At the same time, for areas with concentrated industries and striking characteristics, IB also supports the differentiated development of local economies and accelerates economic transformation and upgrading by setting up featured industries centers or giving branches differentiated approval authority.
Originating in Fujian Province where the private economy is developed, IB insists on working with the vast number of private enterprises, issuing the Opinions on Further Improvement of Service Quality and Efficiency of Private Enterprises, playing its comprehensive service capabilities, and being a good financing and intelligent consultant for private enterprises. In addition, it has gradually established a long-term service mechanism of “daring to lend, willing to lend, and being able to lend” for private enterprises to effectively solve the problems of difficult and expressive financing. By the end of 2018, the loans of private enterprises were increased by 23.39% on year-on-year basis, and the growth rate was higher than that of the overall assets and loans; the scale of private enterprise bond underwriting was RMB 63.1 billion, accounting for one-tenth of the total market shares. In the fourth quarter of this year, the interest rate that newly issued on private, small and micro enterprises was dropped by 73BP, which truly made private enterprises enjoy the financial support of “easy and inexpensive loan”.
In response to the “Belt and Road Initiative”, IB has combined its own resource endowments with business advantages, innovated service models, actively participated in the construction of projects along the “Belt and Road” with differentiated financial services, and provided a comprehensive financing schemes involving the “domestic and overseas” and “commercial bank and investment bank” for a long-term financial support to the “Belt and Road Initiative”. In recent years, IB has participated in 481 construction projects on the “Belt and Road Initative” with a cumulative loan of RMB 53.261 billion. In 2018, the IB’s cross-border settlement volume exceeded US$150 billion, and its underwriting scale of bond issuance overseas was US$ 37.3 billion.
Polishing the “Golden Signboard”, IB green finance paints a beautiful Chinese picture.
As a pioneer of green finance in China, IB aimed to build a “first-class comprehensive service provider in green finance” and a “market-leading green finance group”, actively carried out the integration and innovation of green finance products, gradually formed a multi-level, integrated and comprehensive service system for green finance products, and promoted ecological civilization and green economic development in China through the “financing and intelligence” integration. The Report shows that by the end of 2018, IB has provided 16,862 enterprises with the green financing of RMB 1,762.4 billion, and the financing balance reached RMB 844.9 billion.
In 2018, IB successively supported special bonds issued by such provinces (or cities directly under the central government or autonomous regions) as Sichuan, Tianjin, Yunnan, and Fujian for ecological protection of river basin, ecological restoration and green transportation, and continuously explored to build a green product system in line with local economic characteristics. At the same time, IB continued to deepen its strategic cooperation with the first batch of green finance reform and innovation pilot zones in such provinces (or cities directly under the central government or autonomous regions) as Zhejiang, Guizhou, Jiangxi and Xinjiang. By the end of last year, the cumulative amount of green financing that IB invested in the first five green finance reform pilot zones reached RMB 294.9 billion, with a balance of RMB 157.9 billion, accounting for nearly 19% of its green financing balance.
IB also broadened the channels of funding source and attracted the plenty of sources for the construction of “Beautiful China”. In 2018, IB issued the first overseas green finance bond, and issued the second round of domestic green finance bonds, becoming the first Chinese commercial bank that has issued green finance bonds in both domestic and overseas markets and also the commercial financial institution with the largest balance of green finance bonds in the world. By virtue of the advantages of customer resources in green finance and the influence of participating in the formulation of standards for green bonds, IB also ranked first in the market in terms of market share of green bond underwriting, which has effectively satisfied the green finance demands of real enterprises.
IB has made use of its leading advantages in green finance, fully participated in the formulation of green finance policies such as the implementation plan for green credit evaluation by regulators, guidelines on energy-efficiency loans, and green finance bonds, and provided suggestions for the construction of China’s green finance system and market development. IB also signed cooperation agreements in green finance with more than 20 financial institutions, such as the Bank of Jiujiang, Bank of Huzhou and Anji Rural and Commercial Bank to carry out professional capabilities and technical outputs, and called on more like-minded financial institutions to participate in China’s green finance business and to draw an ecological picture of “Beautiful China”.
Building a “1+N” inclusive finance service system based on “differentiation” approach.
In September 2017, IB took the lead in announcing to establish an Inclusive Finance Division among Chinese joint-stock banks, established and improved the “five specials" mechanism for inclusive finance, and formed a financial service system of “1 (Inclusive Finance Division) + N (such specialized management mechanism as the Department of Small and Medium Enterprises, Green Finance Division and Banking Cooperation Center)” based on its own characteristics. IB walked out a distinctive road of inclusive finance in such aspects as the finance for small and micro enteprises, community finance, Bank-Bank Platform, pension finance and green finance.
Facing the financing difficulties of small and micro enterprises, in 2018, IB actively promoted the application of credit and quasi-credit products such as “Easy Tax Loan Finance”, “Transaction Loan”, “Entrepreneurship Loan” and “Intellectual Property Pledge Loan”, as well as some innovated products of “Extended Loan” “Revolving Loan” and “Honest and Easy Loan”. Moreover, it also established and improved the small and micro exclusive product system integrating the settlement, financing and value-added services, constantly improving the availability of loans for small and micro enterprises, and reducing the financing costs. In 2018, IB’s inclusive loans for small and micro enterprises were increased by 61.40%. Furthermore, IB focused on small and micro enterprises of science and technology innovation, with the “commercial bank + investment bank” approach as the starting point, innovatively launched the “Sesame Blossom-IB Investment” platform to provide science and technology enterprises one-stop whole financial services with the “financing and intelligence” integration, and put together “the settlement and wealth management, debt financing, equity financing, listing”. By the end of 2018, it has served more than 20,000 technological innovation-oriented enterprises, with the loan balance of about RMB 173.2 billion.
Relying on the banking cooperation service brand, the Bank-Bank Platform, IB provided comprehensive financial services such as wealth management, technology output, and consultation of research for various small and medium financial institutions, which realized resource sharing and complementary advantages, and extended modern financial services to more third- and fourth-tier cities, rural areas and remote areas to fill the blind zone of financial services in China. By the end of 2018, the Platform had cooperated with 1,906 corporate customers, and had established relationships in the cooperation of information system with 357 commercial banks. The number of registered customers on the platform of the Internet wealth management “Executive Manager of Money” exceeded 13.19 million, becoming a typical IB sample in the practice of differentiated and inclusive finance in China.
In line with the China’s population aging process, IB launched the first pension finance service program “Safe and Happy Life” in China, and on this basis, actively developed such products as the pension savings and pension wealth management, and vigorously promoted the pilot work of the third pillar of pension insurance and continuously optimized the pension finance service system. By the end of 2018, IB had served more than 14 million elderly customers and provided value-added service rights and exclusive protection covering more than 2.8 million of population, with the comprehensive financial assets of customers for the “Safe and Happy Life” program exceeding RMB 920 billion.
With its technological accumulation and advantages in the field of industrial Internet and driven by the deep integration of technology and finance, IB continued to build a “smart city” platform to put technological “wings” on inclusive finance. By the end of 2018, IB has deeply cooperated with 499 hospitals, 373 tourist attractions and 1,371 transportation enterprises, serving consumers for more than 181 million in total and enabling ordinary residents to enjoy real convenience and speed that can be seen, touched and felt in their daily lives.
Providing financial service with love, “IB Cares” shows corporate social responsibility.
In 2018, IB took the lead in releasing the “IB Cares” brand based on the idea of seed-sown dandelions, and continuously improved a three-in-one long-term mechanism for public interest and charity purpose, i.e., “donations for education”, “disaster relief” and “poverty alleviation”. IB’s total external donation in the whole year was approximately RMB 37 million, with an increase of 76% compared with the previous year. Among them, IB donated more than RMB 25 million, in terms of donations for education, to four universities in Fujian Province, and thus received the “Xiangjiao Shuren Award for Education Support” issued by the Fujian Provincial People’s Government in 2018.
IB established the “Warm Station” for cleaning workers and the “Children-interests Club” to care for the youth in the outlets, carried out the charitable activity of “blood donation to cheer for life”, and set up a long-term assistance and relief relationship with the left-behind children and the poor students in China…There are numerous similar caring and charity stories and cases in the Report. In the eyes of many customers, IB is “approachable” and “warm-hearted”, and in particular, the nearly 1,000 IB Community Banks have become the “financial stewards” and “second homes” on the doorstep of residents. In 2018, IB set up 323 rest stations for sanitation workers and 620 donation stations in its community bank, organized 29,887 events on the co-construction by the community and residents and caring the elderly customers, involving the participation of more than 850,000 customers. The number of customers participated in such activities was more than 1.5 million.
IB made targeted efforts to win the battle for poverty alleviation through the five-in-one concerted efforts, i,e., product poverty alleviation, industry poverty alleviation, channel poverty alleviation, education poverty alleviation and targeted poverty alleviation. It adopted “capacity generation” and “support” measures to strengthen the innovation of financial products for poverty alleviation, and the “mortgage loan through rural residence right and land contracting right” and promoted on a pilot basis the “mortgage loan through forest right” in rural areas. For example, IB set up financial centers for dairy, agriculture and forestry industries in such regions as the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Heilongjiang Province and Guangxi Province which are agricultural development areas with prominent industrial advantages and high focus, targeted and served the prosperity of industries with local characteristics. Among other things, 60 targeted poverty alleviation projects have been designated and supported in southern Xinjiang and 11 contiguous poverty areas. In 2018, IB’s balance of targeted poverty alleviation loans totaled RMB 7.517 billion, with an increase of 35.77% compared with the beginning of the year, of which there was an increase of 180.85% in the balance of targeted industry poverty alleviation loans, driving and serving about 130,000 people registered with the files and cards of living under the poverty line.