China Merchants Bank to expand focus on fintech

Positioning itself as a fintech bank, China Merchants Bank Co Ltd will increase technology investment to deepen its transition toward asset-light operations and management, said a senior executive of the bank.

The Shenzhen-headquartered China Merchants Bank, one of the largest listed national joint-stock commercial lenders by assets, has set up a fund of about 2.2 billion yuan ($344 million), or 1 percent of its net operating income in 2017, to encourage financial technology innovation associated with the banking business.

The majority of the funds have been spent on projects that seek to increase the monthly active users for the bank's mobile applications and also on the exploration of big data, artificial intelligence and a wider variety of business scenarios, said Chen Kunde, chief information officer of the bank.