Leveraging AI, MYbank Enables Financing Services for 53 Million SMEs

HANGZHOU, China--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MYbank, a leading digital bank in China and an associate of Ant Group, today released its 2023 Annual Report, which announces that the bank has cumulatively served over 53 million small and micro-sized enterprises (SMEs) as of the end of 2023. The report also highlights MYbank’s continued investment in technology, with 36% of its operating expenses allocated to tech and over 64% of its workforce comprising of tech talents.

“MYbank remains committed to supporting SMEs’ funding needs amidst ongoing economic and technological transformations. As a technology-driven bank, MYbank will enhance its capabilities through continuous exploration of AI and other emerging technologies, aiming to make finance more inclusive for all,” said MYbank President Feng Liang.

Leveraging Ant Group’s self-developed Bailing foundational model and other new technologies, MYbank enables better-informed lending decisions, making financing more accessible to its extensive base of SME clients, all without the need for physical branches.

In the field of supply chain finance across industries, MYbank's Goose System employs AI-powered knowledge graph capabilities to map out SMEs across entire industry supply chains. Furthermore, the system enhances the bank's ability to assess SMEs' business status and creditworthiness through automated analysis of industry research reports.

In the automobile sector alone, the Goose System has served over 1 million SMEs, 64% of which obtained collateral-free loans for the first time. These loans enabled SMEs to undertake more orders, leading to an average monthly delivery volume increase of 17%.

MYbank has continuously enhanced its AI-powered conversational risk control solution, Lark System, to optimize credit line management for SMEs. Lark operates as a 24/7 digital customer service manager, automating customer interactions and processing various types of customer-uploaded information. Leveraging multimodal analysis, Lark accurately assesses customer needs and delivers tailored credit lines. As of the end of 2023, Lark had served over 8 million SME clients with an average credit limit increase of RMB 45,000 per customer.

In agricultural finance, MYbank has been expanding the coverage of its Tomtit System, which utilizes satellite remote sensing technology to identify crop types and estimate the agricultural output of specific farmlands that growers marked on a digital map. This system enhances the bank's ability to assess potential credit risks more accurately, empowering it to make informed credit decisions when farmers apply for collateral-free loans. By the end of 2023, the Tomtit System can recognize 15 types of crops, and 1.69 million growers across China’s 31 provinces have received online loans through the system.

Through continuous investment in technology, MYbank successfully meets the typically frequent, urgent, and short-term funding requirements of SMEs. In 2023, over 72% of MYbank’s 3 million newly added loan recipients obtained businesses loans from a bank for the first time. Additionally, more than 60% of MYbank’s SME clients received loans with interest below 100 RMB, with the average loan size being 72,000 RMB.

About MYbank

Founded in 2015 with a focus on serving SMEs and farmers, MYbank was among the first group of pilot private commercial banks in China. It was also the first bank in China to deploy its core banking system entirely on the cloud without any physical branches.

MYbank pioneered the “310 model” for SME financing, which offers a collateral-free business loan that takes less than three minutes to apply on a mobile phone, less than one second to approve and requires zero human interaction.

In addition to advanced risk-management solutions, MYbank has harnessed technologies such as AI and remote sensing to streamline credit services for farmers. This approach eliminates the need for lengthy processes or paper documentation, making digital loans more accessible to them.