Postal Savings Bank of China
Postal Savings Bank of China was spun off from state-owned postal service provider China Post Group in 2007. By employing modern technology and leveraging its extensive network in China’s rural areas and small cities, PSBC has become a powerhouse driving e-commerce growth in rural China with a full range of innovative payment products.
PSBC has inherited China Post’s remittance business, which has operated in China for more than a century. No other financial institution can match PSBC’s strength in terms of its network, which covers all the provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across China. In 2016, PSBC processed roughly 57 million domestic remittances, totalling Rmb230 billion ($34 billion). It also handled more than one third of cross-border transmittances last year.
But PSBC has not rested on its laurels. Instead, it has seized the opportunities provided by the burgeoning e-commerce sector in China to expand its payment business. By the end of 2016, China had 731 million internet users and 695 million smartphone users. Among them, more than 27% live in rural areas, the traditional markets for PSBC. Last year, goods purchased online in rural China approached Rmb650 billion, up 86% from 2015, according to official figures.
To support the explosive growth of e-commerce in China’s rural areas, PSBC has rolled out comprehensive electronic payment solutions to enable farmers to transfer money and settle business transactions via the internet, smartphones, ATMs and television sets.
The bank has also introduced new solutions to better serve its rural customers offline. In 2016, it launched Agricultural Aid Plus, a customized service to allow farmers and small rural businesses to rely on telephones to transfer money and make payments across banks. By the end of last year, more than 420,000 of its clients were using Agricultural Aid Plus.
In September 2016, PSBC launched an IPO in Hong Kong. With access to the global capital markets and more corporate social responsibility as a public company, PSBC is poised to play a bigger role in serving its customers in rural China with more innovative and customized payment solutions.