Top financial services bolster economic growth

By Hao Nan | China Daily | Updated: 2018-03-19 08:56

Bank of China has committed to serving the real economy for years by providing companies with comprehensive financial services, and continues to do so in order to facilitate sustainable economic growth in the country.

These services, which cover the whole industrial chain from production to marketing, are designed to satisfy companies' multilevel business requirements such as financing and securing full protection against bad debts.

Last year, the bank launched tailored financial services and solutions for companies in the energy, engineering and medicine industries, making contributions to the nation's Made in China 2025 strategy.

To date, BOC has provided factoring and supply chain services to more than 200 core enterprises in these industries, and the scope of the services has been extended to about 1,800 upstream and downstream firms. With the continuous implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese companies with overseas operations have taken part in an increasing number of trade activities along the route, thus their demand for related financial services from Chinese-funded banks has been high.

Based on its global service network and expertise in trade finance, BOC has improved and innovated some of its existing services, such as factoring, to provide companies with sophisticated financial products and solutions.

The bank has combined high-quality supply chain financing products with internet technologies to increase efficiency, enhance risk prevention and control capacity, and improve customer services. As of 2017, BOC had invested nearly 10 billion yuan ($1.58 billion) in online supply chain finance projects.

Clients of BOC can access a series of global, professional and tailored financial services aimed at staple commodities, based on its four commodities business centers in Singapore, London, New York and Shanghai. From 2014 to 2017, the combined volume of commodities businesses dealt in the four centers hit $197 billion.

BOC has deepened business cooperation with the Shanghai International Energy Exchange to help support and promote the coming crude oil futures which will launch on March 26. The bank plans to assist Chinese firms to gain more pricing power over commodities in the world's second-largest economy.

The crude futures contract will make its debut at the Shanghai exchange, according to the China Securities Regulatory Commission.