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The Zhongguancun Administrative Commission and the Standard Chartered Bank signed a strategic cooperation agreement in Beijing on August 19.
The agreement includes a personalized loan pattern for the Zhongguancun Science Park. The bank will provide innovative start-ups with their first loans to help them build credit and will also offer one-stop financial services.
As the first national innovation and high technology area and the first national innovative demonstration area, Zhongguancun Science Park has been dedicated to supporting start-ups. The science park established 13,000 technological businesses in 2014, and 12,652 in the first half of 2015.
The agreement supports the establishment of the science park, improve the business environment, and drive the development of micro and small technology businesses.
The bank is launching financial products to alleviate micro and small businesses’ difficulties in receiving their first loan. The loan products are personalized for small and medium businesses based in the science park with no credit. In addition, the bank launched a fast lane for examination and approval and provides a favorable loan interest rate.
For small and medium businesses with low collateral bank optimizes the approval process to satisfy their needs in finance.
The bank may support the pilot project on macro-management of foreign debts in the science park. Relying on the preferential policies of the pilot project, the bank will help businesses in the science park expand overseas financing channels. Such efforts will give access to foreign capital and reduce the costs in financing. The pilot project will also help to build a fair market environment and promote the development of the businesses.
Yang Chuandong, president of the Standard Chartered Bank North China Market said, “The innovative energy of the small and medium corporations will become one of the major drivers of the country’s economic transition. We hope to cooperate with Zhongguancun Science Park in the credit system, industrial involvement, and the Internet based financial platforms. Together with the science park, we will provide a better financing environment to small and medium businesses.
Prospects for small businesses declined in the beginning of the third quarter, according to the “confidence index”, a research Standard Chartered Bank specially launched for small and medium businesses. According to the research, the recent economic recovery did not bring positive effects to small and medium businesses. Therefore, the bank hopes to provide financial support and support the healthy development of the real economy in cooperation with the science park.
Dong Meiyi, director of the small and medium businesses department added, “Receiving the first loan and establishing credit are major challenges for many start-ups. We hope our personalized loan products will help businesses and pave the road for growth and further expansion into overseas markets.”
The bank also held a forum on the “confidence index” after the signing ceremony. Economists and scholars from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange participated in the forum and discussed macroeconomic development, and foreign exchange reform. The professionals give suggestions to small and medium businesses based in Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei on strategic development and financing.
Standard Chartered Bank is among the first foreign capital banks in the country to launch a small and medium business department. Its branch office at Yongdingmen, Beijing is the first to provide services specially for small and medium businesses by a foreign capital bank. The bank has been selected as the best foreign capital bank providing services to small and medium banks in 2015.
