Money

China to improve financial services in rural areas

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-09-23 15:29

NANNING - While urbanites can easily withdraw money from ATMs in big cities and transfer money between accounts with the click of a mouse, Huang Bijin had to travel four hours and sometimes stay overnight at a relative's house just to withdraw the money his sons remitted to him every month.

To go to the nearest bank in Jiangxi township, the 53-year-old farmer from Yiwei township of Dahua county in southern China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region had to first take a boat and then ride a bus.

Because of the long queues in the bank, Huang often missed the bus to take him back home, which meant he had to pay for lodging for the night.

Huang's experience is typical of China's large rural population, having no easy access to basic financial services like deposit taking and cash withdrawal.

Statistics from China's Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) show that by last June, 2,945 townships in China had no bank. Breaking the figures down, 2,367 of the townships were in China's western interior while 291 were in eastern China and 287 were in central China.

As an ongoing national campaign aims to fill the financial services vacuum in rural townships by 2012, the Yiwei Township saw its first bank open in late June. The new bank means Huang can finally do his banking within a day.

In neighboring Guhe, the last township in Guangxi to have a bank, people were excited when they saw newly installed ATMs on June 24.

As a lion's share of the township's 6,000 people have left to work in the cities, many of those left behind -- mainly the elderly and children -- did not know how to operate the ATM. To remedy the situation, a person was designated to teach the residents how to operate it.

Tan Qiuyan told Xinhua his part-time teaching on how to use the ATM pays 500 yuan ($ 74) per month.

Filling in the financial services vacuum, however, was not an easy task in inaccessible townships located high in the hills.

In Changping, inhabited mainly by the Yao ethnic minority, local authorities had to persuade banks in Mengshan County to set up a mobile service outlet there at least once a month.

CBRC Chairman Liu Mingkang has described the lack of financial services in rural China as an important issue.

"Although some townships have access to financial services, the services are far from sufficient and satisfactory," Liu said in a statement posted on the CBRC website.

As the campaign forges ahead, many farmers have benefited. In Zhongping village in Guangxi's northwestern Baise city, for instance, convenient financial services brought by bank outlets, ATMs and other self-service facilities have propelled the cultivation of chives, one of the community's pillar industries.

"Most farmers in our village have the Huinong card issued by the Agriculture Bank of China (ABC) that enables us to purchase fertilizer and seeds more easily," said Huang Xinhong, a chives grower. "And, more importantly, we can apply for loans with the card."

Despite these efforts, the development of banks in rural China is far from being fast enough. For a long time, financial services in rural areas have faced a crisis of survival, as most commercial banks prefer to do business in the cities, where profits are high and risks and management costs are low.

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In June, Rural Credit Cooperative in Dahua Yao autonomous county in Guangxi province opened three new outlets. As its revenue failed to cover its costs, the cooperative posted a 800,000 yuan loss.

"We granted 12 million yuan in loans but took in only 3 million yuan in deposits since we opened," said a manager who declined to be identified.

Jiang Shengyong, director of Institute of Economics in Guangxi Development and Reform Commission, said that a solid and systemic support mechanism is essential for a financial institution.

"It is time for the government to allocate funds to support the development of rural finance," he said.

Nong Chengqun, director of the ABC's Guangxi branch, called on the government to establish policies to support rural financial institutions.

The government could, for example, lower the deposit reserve ratio and business tax rates.

"As a bank's costs of operation in a remote, mountainous area are much higher than in cities and towns, the government should adopt policies to ease the burden of banks' operating in the countryside," he said.