On January 2, 2020, a financing platform for SMEs in China’s Guangdong province was formally launched. The platform is supported by OneConnect (NYSE: OCFT), a leading Chinese fintech company that has just been listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The launch of the platform with blockchain as its key underlying technology marks the deep integration of digital government and fintech, signaling that difficulties in obtaining financing, including the associated high cost and slow pace of completing the process, faced by small and medium-sized businesses can be solved by following the “Guangdong model”.
Guangdong province governor Ma Xingrui, Ping An Group chairman and CEO Ma Mingzhe and OneConnect chairman and CEO Ye Wangchun attended the launch ceremony.
OneConnect leveraged Guangdong’s “digital government” data resources, as well as its own advanced financial technologies in blockchain, artificial intelligence and big data, to build a platform that furnishes financing to SMEs, while resolving the issue of information asymmetry. This was accomplished by providing comprehensive commercial credit profiles for businesses, as well as solutions for supply chain financing, trade financing and intellectual property financing, with the result that financial institutions can strengthen their risk management capabilities and improve the efficiency of their financial services.fintech
The SME financing platform currently has access to data in 213 categories from 26 government departments, collecting information and creating a corporate profile alongside a risk evaluation for more than 11 million companies. In addition, the platform has successfully connected with 129 financial institutions in the province, including ICBC, China Construction Bank and Ping An Bank, in addition to launching 319 financial products.
The prominent technical advantage of the SME platform is the blockchain technology it uses and its information sharing, privacy protection and mutual trust mechanism, which not only assures the accuracy and security of the corporate profile, but also enables financial institutions to acquire company information in accordance with laws and regulations, said by OneConnect CEO Mr. Ye. Blockchain can play a role in solving financing problems for SMEs, whether they are engaged in manufacturing, foreign trade or the more innovative areas of science and technology.
At the event, the Guangdong provincial governor, Mr. Ma, formally inaugurated the “Intelligent Matching” feature of the SME financing platform, witnessing the platform’s accepting and granting of the first online unsecured financing credit based on blockchain technology. Within 10 minutes, Huizhou Shenghua Industry Co., Ltd. received 1.12 million yuan in supply chain financing from ICBC, while Guangdong Sunlux IOT Technology Co., Ltd. obtained 500,000 yuan in foreign trade financing from Ping An Bank, and Corehelm Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. received 200,000 yuan in intellectual property financing from China Construction Bank.
