Our reporter Yu Junyi
The digital transformation of offline outlets has become an inevitable trend in the development of the banking industry.
According to statistics from the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission's official website, a reporter from "Securities Daily" found that as of February 13, 267 bank outlets in my country have ceased operations this year, and the online and offline automation and intelligence of banking business are developing rapidly.
"The overall transformation of banks to online is a major trend, and it is also the inevitable result of the development and competition of the banking industry under the guidance of efficiency." Bo Wenxi, chief economist of IPG China, told the "Securities Daily" reporter.
Liu Xingsai, the author of "Platform Banking", told the "Securities Daily" reporter that there are three main reasons for the current closure of outlets in China's banking industry: First, in the past period of time, many banks, including large banks, have expanded their outlets on a large scale, but some The performance of outlets is not good, so banks need to adjust the extensive outlet expansion in the past, optimize outlet layout and function settings; second, some banks actively promoted the community banking strategy and promoted the development of lightweight outlets in the past, but lacked effective customer acquisition. As well as the business model, related explorations were not successful, so they had to be forced to give up; third, the banking business continued to be online and scenario-based, and the traditional offline customer acquisition and living customer functions were shrinking, and bank outlets had lost their main channel status.
Although the number of bank outlets continues to shrink, it is undeniable that some residents, especially the elderly, still choose the outlet counters when handling some businesses.
In Bai Wenxi's view, the demand for bank counters by the elderly group still exists, and banks should improve online service levels while maintaining a certain scale of physical outlets.
Regarding the challenges faced by bank outlets during the transformation process, Chen Jia, a researcher at the International Monetary Institute of Renmin University of China, told the "Securities Daily" reporter that abolishing an outlet is not simply "closing the door", and there is a whole set of outlet transformation strategy combination operation process behind it. In operation, including the optimization and reorganization of assets and human resources of old outlets, the optimization of new outlet location decision-making and urban and rural planning, the rational allocation of resources to new communities that need bank outlet services, product line innovation and personnel business job training, supervision and cooperation Regulation and risk security design and implementation, etc., these are the required actions that must be completed in the transformation of bank outlets in reality.
For banks, maintaining the status quo can save financial costs, but from the perspective of high-quality sustainable development, serving the real economy, and serving the people, they cannot stick to the old ways, and must accelerate all-round transformation to adapt to the ever-changing new situation.
In recent years, many banks have been creating innovative and characteristic outlets, developing towards the characteristic and differentiation direction of "small, beautiful and refined".
For example, since last year, China Construction Bank has built a number of outlets with the theme of auto finance; Industrial Bank has built outlets with the theme of party building; Shanghai Pudong Development Bank has created outlets featuring tea culture.
Regarding the development trend of bank outlets in the future, Chen Jia believes that the banking industry is taking the opportunity of outlet transformation to accelerate the deployment of new business districts and new communities.
The withdrawal, merger, and establishment of old and new outlets are not a mere replacement of old and new outlets, but an integrated strategy that serves the regional economic layout and overall business development of banking institutions.
In the future, the transformation of bank outlets will be further integrated with new banking formats, and the integration of bank outlets with communities, government and enterprises, and technology will be further enhanced.
(Securities Daily)