Currently, Industrial Bank (IB) and HSBC Rural Bank have entered into a cooperation memorandum on agent access to the Chinese modern payment system service. Based on the memorandum, Industrial Bank will provide the service of agent access to the modern payment system service for rural banks that have, and that are to be established in the future by HSBC in China. It is reported that there have been 11 rural banks launched and established by HSBC up to now in eight provinces and cities across China.
In recent years, rural banks, as new rural financial institutions for facilitating the planned development of rural and urban areas as a whole and serving “agriculture, rural areas and farmers”, entered into a period of fast development. However, such factors as weak technical strength and blocked settlement channels have become big handicaps against the development of rural banks. In view of the obstructive remittance channels for rural banks, IB began to provide the agent access to the modern payment system service for rural banks based on its “bank-bank platform system” from 2009. Moreover, it innovatively released the “bank-bank platform client terminal” in March 2010. In this way, it is easier for rural banks to access to the modern payment system service through IB, and they can avoid making a large investment in the development and transformation of system software and the purchase of hardware equipment, thus saving the cost of system construction and operation. In addition, in order to ensure that all rural banks receiving the agent access service can handle all businesses in the payment system in a compliant and accurate way, IB also provides rural banks with overall training and a long-term technical support service with regards to the payment system, and prepares detailed emergency response plans for the agent access to the payment system, winning extensive recognition among regulatory authorities and rural banks.
By the end of July 2011, there were 41 rural banks that have undergone business cooperation with IB regarding agent access to the payment system. Additionally, IB also released integrated service programs for rural banks including the construction of information systems, wealth management, etc., thus clearing worries behind rural banks of a weak strength in constructing information systems, and helping them to increase fund investment channels and diversify financial service products. So far there are nearly 20 rural banks to have launched cooperation with IB on core-system construction and trusts.