The Bank of Gansu and China Commercial Bank are the latest among Chinese banks that have partnered with the country's tech conglomerates for their digitisation needs.
Two Chinese banks have announced partnerships with the cloud computing arm of Chinese multinational investment holding conglomerate Tencent, online publication Technode reported on Thursday.
The first of Tencent's partnerships, announced on Tuesday, was signed with the Hong Kong-listed Bank of Gansu, to establish an online loan management platform with improved marketing tools and risk controls, which will be deployed based on Tencent’s cloud computing infrastructure and distributed database system.
Bank of Gansu is the only provincial city commercial bank in Gansu, where it ranked 2nd in total assets and 3rd in total deposits among banking institutions in 2017, according to the bank's website. It said it hopes to leverage Tencent's technological capabilities and business resources to build cloud computing platforms to offer diversified financial services to local businesses, Technode reported.
Fintech Lab
On Wednesday, Tencent signed a strategic cooperation agreement with China Construction Bank to develop a financial technology joint innovation laboratory in Shenzhen. The lab will be led by Tencent’s cloud business unit and involve collaboration in technologies including artificial intelligence and big data, a press release said (in Chinese).
CCB is one of China’s big six state-owned banks. It previously collaborated with Tencent on the creation of a cloud platform to support its own operating needs as well as multiple tech capability delivery projects, which saw the creation of basic infrastructure, security measures and corresponding technological capability within the space of only 40 days.
China's Fintech Ecosystem
Big banks and tech conglomerates in China often work hand-in-hand as the latter offer capabilities across several verticals, including business-to-consumer solutions with online payments, investments, digital banking and lending, as well as a broad customer base. Tech firms, on the other hand, leverage banks’ capabilities in risk control and as a network for new growth
Tencent rival Ant Financial, formerly known as Alipay, an affiliate company of Alibaba Group, has also inked multiple deals with Chinese state banks, including with CCB in 2017 to boost online credit card issuance and many other services.
In May 2018, Alipay reached a partnership deal with China Everbright Bank on fintech development. «Fintech is becoming competence for financial institutions in the pursuit of transformation and innovation,» an Everbright spokesperson told China Global Television Network when the deal was announced.
