Inclusive customers and banks suffer mutual pain points
Ping An Bank aims to ameliorate road blocks to financial inclusion of underserved segments of the economy by marrying digital with human interaction to address customers’ pain points. Micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), new urban residents, and rural customers are the three most common groups that benefit from financial inclusion in China. Customers in these groups have unique pain points but also intersect in many scenarios.
Ping An Bank found that financial institutions (FIs) need to upgrade product design, simplify the process, and engage in customer operations to identify their pain points. This will help FIs to discern how best to bring these customers into the mainstream so they can participate in the wider economy.
On the other hand, inclusive customers urgently need to improve their financial and digital literacy as well. For example, many lack sufficient credit data to meet the criteria for loans. They face higher prices for loans because of fewer assets, and have almost no credit history. With a lower level of financial and digital literacy, it has been challenging for them to identify the most suitable product or to go through an online, non-human process.
Ping An Bank also aims to tackle issues such as scattered and diversified customer patterns, insufficient data for risk profiling, and the trend of digitalisation that further marginalises this segment of customers. Ping An Bank’s Smart Banking 3.0, launched in 2021, offers more possibilities for financial inclusion.

Ping An Bank combines human interaction with digital technology
Ping An Bank is one of the frontrunners in digitalisation in China. Its technological advantages allow for creating personalised services to meet customers’ varied and specific needs, while also generating real value and expanding business opportunities in the inclusive business.
Ping An Bank improved the coverage of inclusive services during the development of Smart Banking 3.0. Since 2022, ATO (artificial intelligence combined with remote and offline banking), personal banking and open banking have been integrated. ATO launched more than 4,000 scenarios, serving more than 49 million customers, a year-on year (YoY) increase of 50%, and customer service capability quickly improved.
While designing inclusive products, Ping An Bank penetrates the blockages to include innovative financial service modes to address particular difficulties faced by customers. For instance, new urban residents can apply for loans online anytime and anywhere. The bank created a product called Zhaididai Quanguotong for loan applicants using an address that is different from where they live, a scenario commonly observed among new urban residents.
In addition, Ping An Bank has a virtual ‘multi-person collegiate room’ where relevant personnel can verify loan applications and sign contracts online by video with the customer.
Through discounts on loan pricing, Ping An Bank manages to provide affordable and personalised financial services to help lower borrowing costs. In 2022, the bank proposed a special funds transfer pricing (FTP) support project. Ping An Bank has also formulated a special FTP for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs): on top of general FTP reduction, another subsidy is given to SMEs to help with their post-COVID-19 recovery. The bank, seeing that rural customers also need support, offered a subsidy for inclusive agriculture-related loans.
By marrying digital and offline services, Ping An Bank humanised a digitalised environment that this segment may have trouble navigating, to offer flexible and convenient financial solutions in a way that customers can understand and be comfortable with. Ping An Bank launched Smart Bank 3.0 with a management system driven by the headquarters’ AI Brain decision engine that can carry out intelligent matching, analysis, and precisely personalised services for the diverse needs of customers. This enables Ping An Bank to provide affordable and targeted products for its inclusive customers.
For example, Ping An Bank went to Zhongshan in Guangdong Province to investigate the financing issues of the breeders of Cuirouhuan or ‘crispy-carp’. Although it is an iconic industry in Zhongshan, the Cuirouhuan industry faces frequent financing difficulties. The bank was able to design a special credit plan for the breeders that addressed their financial roadblocks.
Ping An Bank found that these breeders generally have a longer capital turnaround and are often prone to liquidity shortage. When seeking financing, most breeders do not trust online loan channels and lack the cash flow, financial statements, or collateral assets required for a traditional application. They often choose to sell a portion of Cuirouhuan in advance in exchange for liquidity at hand, which leads to a reduction in revenue.
To solve this problem, Ping An Bank, based on field research and risk assessment, customised a special credit extension plan for the breeders, providing a more flexible method of asset and income identification. The plan eliminated the need to show a cash-flow statement. Asset certification is based on individual credit and verified with an on-site visit.
In this way, Ping An was able to solve the financing difficulties the breeders face and the inevitable losses they kept incurring, simply because they remained outside of the banking process.
A common feature among inclusive customers is that they are often unfamiliar and skeptical about financial services. They tend to have incomplete knowledge about finance, that prevents them from solving their financial difficulties through inclusive services. In response to this problem, Ping An Bank reached out to them with financial education and content.

Rapid growth in customer base, credit balance, and market share
As of October 2022, Ping An Bank has served over one million SMEs, with SME loans exceeding RMB 500 billion ($72.6 billion), taking its financial inclusive services to a new level. From 2019 to 2021, the three-year average compound annual growth rate of its inclusive loan balance reached 28%, three percentage points higher than for average joint-stock banks.
Wang Ronghui, president of the retail credit business and financial inclusion at the bank, said that along with the retail transformation of Ping An Bank, the digital and smart transformation of inclusive customers has also achieved remarkable results. Ping An’s ability to support and serve the real economy has also been comprehensively improved.
Financial inclusion in China has entered a new stage now where everyone is connected through digital devices. Instead of just deposits and loans, Ping An Bank plans to further expand its scope of inclusive products and tap into insurance, wealth management, and so on, in order to dive deeper into areas where the bank may be of tangible service to underserved segments of the economy.
Technology does not generate a benefit on its own; it still needs the bank to humanise product design and to offer concrete, innovative value propositions.