On June 12, Industrial Bank and Baidu held a signing ceremony for strategic cooperation in Fuzhou, announcing comprehensive strategic cooperation in internet and financing. XueHefeng, VP of Industrial Bank, and Zeng Liang, VP of Baidu, attended signing ceremony and signed the cooperation agreement on behalf of respective company. According to their agreement, Industrial Bank will be the only comprehensive strategic partner of Baidu. The parties will take their advantages in financing and internet respectively, and improve their products and services by in-depth and innovative cooperation, thus achieving a complementary and joint development.
It is introduced that IB and Baidu will conduct strategic cooperation in three areas: 1) internet financing. The parties will establish innovative cooperation team in internet financing, e-commerce, big data research, online retail credit, financing market and trade financing, aiming to launch competitive internet-based innovative financing products. 2) cooperation around big data. By applying key technology and core advantages of Baidu in big data and analyzing consumer behavior, they will provide suggestions and solutions in the development and design of new products, optimization of business procedures and innovation of business development for Industrial Bank. 3) cooperation in products marketing. The parties will take advantage of Baidu search platform and innovative technology in promoting the marketing innovation and channel construction of internet-based sales of IB. They intend to enlarge market shares and influences by sharing marketing channel and conducting joint campaign.
To promote the strategic cooperation effectively, the parties agreed on a collaborated working mechanism, including regular communications between executives and organizing multiple working team to implement specific projects.
“It is IB’s consensus that internet-based financing will be an inevitable trend of traditional financial sector. Internet enterprises bring not only threat and competition but also opportunity and cooperation to banks.” said XueHefeng, VP of Industrial Bank. As indicated by him, Baidu's idea of "customer orientation", technology innovation spirit and core values of “simple and reliable” of internet service are perfectly matching IB’s idea of “sincere service” and “customer first” and core values of “reasonable, innovative, people-oriented and sharing” , such cooperation is a natural result. IB’s advantages in capital strength, outlet distribution, clients base and service ability are complementary with Baidu's strengths in big data, internet search, user experience, platform flow, talent and technology, building a solid foundation for the win-win of strategic cooperation.
As introduced by XueHefeng, IB has started tapping into internet financing since last year. On one hand, IB has been actively exploring internet financing, and launched several innovative products such as “Money Manger” and “Direct Bank”. By the end of May, the signed customers of “Money Manger” and Direct Bank totaled more than 810,000, with accumulated transaction amount over 134 billion yuan. On the other hand, based on ideas, technology and commercial mode of internet sector, IB promote the product R&D, service organization and innovation and self-transformation of marketing mode. The strategic cooperation with Baidu is just another major measure taken by IB in developing internet financing business. It will advance the in-depth application of internet in financial service to individual consumers, and create new financial service mode that meets users’ habit.
Zeng Liang, VP of Baidu, is confident in the prospect of cooperation. He indicated that such cooperation with IB is an alliance between internet and banking giant, and as a cross-sector cooperation connecting internet big data and traditional financial institute, a new era of internet financing will be opened. Responding 6 billion+ search requests per day, Baidu has been achieving innovations in new areas such as mobile internet, internet financing and LBS, which not only brings them with plenty of users, but also makes it a most valuable internet platform that provides huge opportunities for the strategic cooperation. Taking the cooperation as an example, Baidu will make full use of its experiences and technologies in data research, consumer insights, brand building and marketing mode to create a total internet based solution. It will promote the innovation in product development and marketing mode for IB with internet-based creative ideas, and better connect suppliers and demanders in financial area to simplify sophisticated financial business and achieve win-win results for multiple parties.