CX Daily: Why Time Banks Haven’t Caught On in China
TOP STORY
Time banks?/
In China, time banks have existed since 1998. However, they have been?slow to get off the ground?due a host of factors including a lack of participants, promotion, financial support and standardization that would allow people who volunteered in one region to cash in their credits in another.?
Furthermore,?it suffers from a lingering concern that volunteers today might not be able to redeem their credits when they need them in the future.
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Digital banks?/
Two digital banks backed by?Ant Group?and?Tencent Holdings?reported a rise in bad loans?and slower growth of their balance sheets but also posted higher profits and healthy liquidity metrics.
Ant Group-backed?MYbank?said its nonperforming loan ratio for 2022 was 1.94%, up 0.41 of a percentage point from the previous year. That was still lower than the average ratio of 2.18% for small and midsize enterprise loans in China, according to the online lender’s annual report.
Tencent-backed?WeBank’s nonperforming loan ratio climbed 0.27 of a percentage point to 1.47% in 2022, the company said.
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Banking?/
Despite issuing a record amount of loans in the first quarter, China’s banks?are bracing for profitability?to weaken further in 2023 after net interest margins were heavily squeezed by both loan rate cuts and rising deposit costs last year.
As they look to shore up profitability this year, many lenders in the $55 trillion sector by assets are?turning to either increasing loan volumes or bolstering noninterest income?from business units such as wealth management.
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Exports?/
China’s textile and apparel exports?face “significant growth pressure”?this year after shrinking 6.8% year-on-year to $67.2 billion in the first quarter,?with shipments to major markets including the U.S. and the EU tumbling,?an industry group said.
Chinese manufacturers exported $32.1 billion of textiles in the first quarter,?a year-on-year slump of 12.1%,?and apparel exports dipped 1.3% to $35.2 billion, data from the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Textiles (CCCT) show.
领英推荐
Quick hits?/
AI?/
The launch of ChatGPT with a whopping 175 billion parameters?impressed many?— including?Baidu?co-founder and CEO Robin Li. Sensing what could be a disruptive threat to China’s AI sector, Li deemed it necessary for his company to launch its own large language model (LLM) that could match ChatGPT.
Li personally led the effort. Baidu Chief Technology Officer Wang Haifeng was responsible for its execution. Building on more than a decade of AI know-how,?Baidu succeeded in becoming the first among China’s tech giants to launch a ChatGPT challenger.
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Property?/
China Fortune Land Development Co. Ltd.?(600340.SH) said it?successfully restructured?more than 80% of its 219 billion yuan ($31.7 billion) debt overhang. The cash-strapped private developer?returned to profitability after two years of liquidity crisis.
Hebei province-based China Fortune Land signed agreements with creditors to restructure 180.6 billion yuan of debts through various means by the end of 2022, accounting for 82.4% of total outstanding debt, the developer’s 2022 financial report showed.
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Quick hits?/
Long Read?/
Zibo, an industrial city in East China’s Shandong province, has emerged as a hot tourist destination after videos showcasing its affordable local barbecue joints spread on social media. In March, around 4.8 million travelers descended on the city, 100,000 more than the local population. Over 120,000 people are expected to visit during the May Day holiday period
Realtor Associate @ Next Trend Realty LLC | HAR REALTOR, IRS Tax Preparer
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