Bank of China looks to tech for high-quality growth

Bank of China Ltd has accelerated its transition to high-quality development by promoting the deep integration of technologies and business.

Last year, the fourth-largest commercial lender by assets in China comprehensively implemented its development strategy, which is led by technology and driven by innovation.

The bank promoted business development through the adoption of new technologies, building a service system that placed mobile banking and smart teller machines at its core, said Liu Qiuwan, chief information officer of BOC, at a news conference on Friday.

"We launched a suite of services including facial recognition, robo advisors and cross-border QR payments, in addition to introducing artificial intelligence, big data and biometrics to our business. We also strengthened cooperation with third parties on offering financial services centered around everyday transactions, such as shopping, healthcare and entertainment, via mobile banking," he said.

As of the end of 2018, the number of subscribers to BOC's mobile banking service increased by 26 percent year-on-year to 145 million and transaction volume rose by 83 percent to 20.03 trillion yuan ($2.98 trillion) last year.

The bank has finished transferring its major offline business to smart teller machines, which served a cumulative sum of more than 100 million customers. SMTs have replaced counters as the main channel of the bank's offline services, according to Liu.

The sales volume of its robo-advisory product, which was launched in April, exceeded 5.7 billion yuan at the end of last year, and its smart anti-fraud system has intercepted suspicious transactions with a total volume exceeding 8 billion yuan.

Liu Jiandong, chief risk officer of BOC, said the bank will keep strengthening its risk warning mechanism with the help of big data technologies. He estimated that the asset quality of the bank will remain stable this year and even improve slightly.

At the end of last year, the nonperforming loan ratio of the bank dropped by 3 basis points year-on-year to 1.42 percent. The coverage ratio of allowance for loan impairment losses to NPLs was 181.97 percent, up by 22.79 percentage points from the prior year-end, according to its 2018 annual report.