In scarcely populated farming and stockbreeding areas of Inner Mongolia, as cash is the major payment method, farmers and herdsmen usually have to go to town or county for simple businesses like payment of utility fees, which not only takes time and energy but also delays production. On the other hand, the inefficiency and slow capital returning of traditional collection method of electric charge also bothers local power enterprise.
And now with the involvement of one bank, all of these have changed fundamentally.
In view of this situation, IB Huhhot Branch made a breakthrough in the collection of electric charges by designing a solution that using POS machine to collect electric charge for local power enterprises. The test run of the program started in March 2012 and comprehensively promoted in December 2012. Up to date, 1,612 POS machines have been deployed and covering 7 league cities and 38 counties, spanning 2,100 kilometers, serving 6.02 million people, and 306,200 transactions have been swiped by card and over 600 million yuan have been paid in total, which bring great convenience of fees payment for farmers and herdsmen living in remote areas.
“Thanks to IB, now we no longer have to walk dozens of miles to pay electric charge in town with the hi-tech POS machine,” said excitedly by Bartel, a herdsman from Wu La Gai Su Mu, East Ujimqin Banner, Xilin Gol League.
Nowadays, from Dongwu town of Xilin Gol grassland at east to Ejin Banner where populus euphratic forest grows at west, farmers and herdsmen all can pay electric charge via POS machine. Bayar, who often conducts business at town, feel deeply about the convenience, "I don’t have to run between the town and Su Mu, and more importantly, it is free of handling charge,” he told the reporter in a cheerful mood.
Witnessing the social benefits from the program, Zhangliang, who supervise 2nd Business Development Section of Corporate Finance, IB Huhhot Branch, feel truly glad.
And for the local power enterprises, the program solved not just settlement efficiency. IB Hohhot Branch also supported the upgrading and rebuilding project of rural power grid for Inner Mongolia Power Group by providing 4.64 billion yuan in green financing for transform aging lines of rural stockbreeding areas and construction of power supply in no power areas.
Furthermore, based on its distinctive “bank-bank platform”, IB also partners with Inner Mongolia Rural Credit Cooperatives in achieving counter pass, covering 11 leagues cities and over 2,000 outlets. Bayar is very excited about the news, as with the bank-bank platform, he can use his Golden Bull card across the country, and purchase wealth management products of IB and engage in precious metal transactions via local rural credit cooperatives and rural commercial bank, and enjoy modern financial service like urban residents.
By practicing the idea of “obtaining reasonable profits while bringing benefits to the stakeholders” and “inclusive finance”, as a member of grassland, IB Huhhot Branch has really further supported agriculture and benefited farmers with innovative financial tools. As a result, the business department of IB Huhhot Branch also won the “2013 Best Corporate Social Responsibility Award for Outlet with Special Contribution” awarded by China Banking Association, the only outlet that received such honor among all the banks in Inner Mongolia.