Managed by IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, and supported by the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion, the Global SME Forum 2024 was held in São Paulo, Brazil from September 16 to 18. Leading financial institutions, fintech enterprises, and SME industry experts worldwide joined this annual event to explore the digital-sustainable transitions of SME finance in the age of AI.
WeBank attended the Forum as the only Chinese financial institution invited. At the roundtable sessions on “Navigating the SME Finance Lifecycle from Inception to Maturity” and “Digital Banks: Powering SME Growth,” Vincent Zheng, Deputy General Manager of the Corporate Digital Marketing Department at WeBank, addressed the current progress of SME finance in China and WeBank’s digital practices in the area.
At the Forum, the Global SME Finance Awards 2024 announced winners of the year. WeBank won the platinum prize of “SME Financier of the Year – Commercial Bank – Global” and “SME Financier of the Year – Asia” for its digital practices in SME finance. With the win of “SME Financier of the Year – Asia,” WeBank became the first financial institution to receive the highest recognition under the category in two consecutive years.
From digital credit to full-process service for MSMEs
At the main stage event of “Navigating the SME Finance Lifecycle from Inception to Maturity,” SME business executives and representatives of investment institutions from China, Arabia, Cambodia, Nigeria, the United States, and Brazil discussed about local SME financial services, delivering encouraging insights to financial practitioners from emerging financial markets.
In China, there are over 53 million micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), making the nation one of the markets with the most MSME entities. The past decade saw a significant improvement in the coverage, accessibility, and satisfaction of MSME financial services thanks to the development of financial inclusion in China.
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“With the rapid advance of data infrastructure in China over the past few years, the interactive mechanisms of bank-tax and bank-business enabled WeBank to integrate the authenticated and authorized third-party credibility data from tax, industry and commerce, credit, justice, electricity, and social security into our risk control systems and business practices. Our online unsecured corporate working capital loan product ‘Weiyedai’ launched in 2017 has now received applications from over five million MSMEs. Meanwhile, the number of applying enterprises accounts for about 7% of the total number of operating enterprises where we provide services, ” said Zheng.
WeBank now has a digital product portfolio and specialized financial services to support MSMEs through a full lifecycle including credit, account management, payment, settlement, trade finance, insurance, and wealth management. ‘Weiyedai’ also offers supply chain financial services to upstream and downstream enterprises from the supply chains of key industries. For sci-tech enterprises, WeBank integrates a customized service system to comprehensively fulfil their demand for digital operation and sustainable innovation.
AI empowers digital banks to better serve MSMEs
Powered by digitization, digital banking is now a key player in the finance sector. Along with the World Bank Group and fellow fintech enterprises, executives of digital banks from China, Brazil, Cambodia, Nigeria, South Africa, and other emerging markets joined the Forum for a dedicated session on the role of digital banks in empowering SMEs.
WeBank, as the first digital bank in China, utilizes digital tools in big data risk control, accurate reach, and enterprise service to apply digital and intelligent solutions to the full process of MSME financial services. The practice serves as an example of digital inclusive finance with bearable costs, controllable risks, and sustainable business growth.
“WeBank continues to integrate innovative digital solutions into its products and services. For instance, WeBank built a financial large language model to improve the understanding of MSME customers. With a better understanding of these customers, we could optimize the experience and performance of customer service, banking risk control, digital marketing, and operation, in addition to MSME-oriented services such as digital venture capital,” as Zheng noted.
About WeBank
Launched in 2014, WeBank Co., Ltd. (“WeBank”) is the first digital bank inChina. WeBank provides convenient financial services to micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and the public, and continuously improves the quality of services in response to customers’ specific needs. WeBank now ranks 255 in the Top 1000 World Banks by The Banker.
WeBank focuses on innovation and technology. WeBank has maintained its proportion of technical personnel above 50% since its establishment, while its research and development expenses accounted for around 10% of its revenue. WeBank is now at the top of the industry in core technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, cloud computing and big data.
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