By most accounts, China is the global leader in internet banking and financial technology (fintech) investments.
Fintech’s relevance in China will be on full display this month—during last year’s Chinese New Year holiday week, consumers used Tencent’s WeChat app to send out more than 30 billion digital red envelopes.
Chinese search provider Baidu Inc. in January became the latest technology giant to open a direct bank, joining forces with investment firm China CITIC Bank to form Baixin Bank. Baixin will offer online-only banking and lending services for consumers and small businesses.
With this launch, Baidu joins internet giants Alibaba and Tencent Holdings (together, BAT) in offering direct banking through online banks. Tencent, which runs China’s largest social network WeChat, formed WeBank in 2014. Alibaba introduced two of China’s most successful fintech ventures in MYBank and Ant Financial.
Other Chinese companies are following BAT into the internet banking foray. In late December Xiaomi, one of China’s biggest online smartphone sellers, bought a 30 percent stake in Sichuan XW Bank, a major internet bank in Western China which leverages data to target small-businesses and consumers. Meituan.com, a website that specializes in group buying, also formed an internet bank called Jilin Yilian Bank, which received its banking licenses on Dec. 16.
Fintech investments surged to $8.8 billion in the twelve months ended June 30, 2016, according to a joint report by DBS Bank and consultancy firm EY. In early 2016, Ant Financial alone raised $4.5 billion, the largest single private placement in fintech history, putting a $60 billion valuation in the Alibaba-affiliated company. In total, fintech attracted around half of all of Chinese venture capital during 2016.
The major internet banks have performed well financially relative to other startups. In an interview with Chinese media last December, WeBank CEO Gu Min said that financial performance was above expectations and the internet bank was on track to break even or eke out a small profit for 2016.
Two Factors Driving Growth
Fintech’s growth in China is largely an extension of services from BAT, China’s dominant technology giants. There are more than 700 million smartphones in use in China. Those three companies control much of the online and mobile life of Chinese internet users, and converting millions of captive users already in the fold is an evolution of their product strategy.
But the pervasiveness of fintech isn’t just about sheer numbers. In the United States, Facebook and Amazon.com both have millions of captive users, but the companies’ banking and payment services are still in their nascent stages with low adoption rates.
The biggest growth enabler of fintech and internet banking is the traditional banking industry in China. The major banks’ complete neglect of large swaths of consumers, small businesses, and private enterprises has single-handedly spurred recent rise of fintech in China.
