Recently, China Merchants Bank changed its name and reorganized the Strategic Planning and Execution Department of the head office, and established a "financial technology office" at the head office level, positioning it as the overall management and promotion department of financial technology of the whole bank.

This reorganization is the biggest reform of China Merchants Bank in terms of information technology structure since its establishment.Industry insiders believe that after the establishment of the Financial Technology Office, China Merchants Bank is expected to use blockchain and other innovative technologies to accelerate the empowerment of traditional financial services.

And just last month, another large state-owned bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, also announced the establishment of a fintech research institute.Judging from the announcement of the establishment, the main business direction of the institute is "carrying out forward-looking research and technical reserves on new technologies of financial technology, strategic planning and layout of key financial technology fields, and innovative applications."

Both China Merchants Bank and ICBC have carried out reforms at the organizational structure level to promote the innovation and development of financial technology.secondary title

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China: The pace of innovation still needs to be accelerated

The overall layout of ICBC’s financial technology can be summarized as “one department, three centers, one company, and one research institute”, namely the financial technology department, business research and development center, data center, software development center, ICBC technology company and financial technology research institute .

Among them, blockchain technology is regarded by ICBC as a breakthrough point for independent innovation of financial technology core technology.

In October 2019, in the second batch of blockchain information service filing lists released by the Cyberspace Administration of China, ICBC was the first bank among the major state-owned banks to file.ICBC filed the "ICBC Seal Chain Blockchain Services" and "ICBC Blockchain-Based Financial Services".

In 2016, ICBC began to develop a prototype of a financial product trading platform based on blockchain technology. Based on the traditional trading model, the platform provides customers with peer-to-peer financial asset transfer and trading services.

In 2017, ICBC established a blockchain and biometric innovation laboratory. After the establishment of the laboratory, ICBC's self-controllable blockchain 1.0 platform was officially launched in the fourth quarter of 2017. ", an enterprise-level blockchain technology platform.

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ICBC's independent blockchain platform / Tuyuan Network

Subsequently, relying on the "ICBC Seal Chain", ICBC launched a blockchain management platform for poverty alleviation funds jointly built with Guizhou Guimin Group.It is the industry's first blockchain project serving targeted poverty alleviation.

The platform cross-chain integrates the banking financial service chain and the government administrative approval chain, and uses the technical characteristics of the blockchain such as "non-tamperable and transaction traceability" to realize the "transparent use", "precise delivery" and "efficient management" of poverty alleviation funds.

After initial success in the direction of targeted poverty alleviation, ICBC's independent blockchain platform has successively been built in Xiong'an Smart Forest, Xiong'an Expropriation and Demolition Fund Management System, China-Europe Single Link Cross-border Trade Platform, Ningxia Smart Government Affairs System, ICBC e-Insight applied in it.

Although the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China has stepped up the pace of innovation in recent years, using the blockchain platform to serve government affairs, industry and people's livelihood and other fields.But on the whole, ICBC is not at the forefront in the wave of intellectualization and digital transformation of the traditional domestic financial industry。

In the "2019 Development Potential Ranking List of Large State-owned Commercial Banks" released by the innovative service platform Yiou in the middle of this year, ICBC ranked first in terms of operating capabilities, but lagged far behind other large state-owned banks in terms of technological innovation capabilities China Construction Bank and Bank of China.

The degree of intelligence of its system is also at the bottom of the traditional five major industries. Judging from the indicators, ICBC still has a lot of room to wait for development in the field of financial technology innovation, and urgently needs to speed up.

Now that ICBC has established a fintech research institute, it is a sign of accelerating fintech innovation.secondary title

China Merchants Bank: Focus on cross-border finance

Today, technology-empowered finance has become the consensus of the banking industry.China Merchants Bank, which has always advocated "technology-based development", is naturally unwilling to lag behind.China Merchants Bank was selected as the "Best Bank in China" by "Euromoney" this year. The award speech mentioned China Merchants Bank's "innovative spirit and continuous innovation in technology".

It is precisely because of this innovative spirit that China Merchants Bank has set foot in the blockchain field very early. In 2016, China Merchants Bank announced to join the R3 blockchain alliance, which is the second Chinese financial company to join R3 after Ping An Group.

When joining the alliance, China Merchants Bank stated that blockchain has great potential in the banking field, and hopes to apply blockchain technology to banking business to improve financial services and processes.

Since then, the "blockchain + finance" field that China Merchants Bank has been deeply involved in is cross-border finance.

China Merchants Bank has a large number of cross-border RMB interbank agency clearing customers, and the clearing business volume exceeds one trillion yuan every year. In the traditional cross-border liquidation, each link needs to be carried out sequentially, the communication cost is huge, and the liquidation efficiency is low, so an efficient solution is urgently needed.

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Blockchain solves cross-border liquidation problems / Tuyuan Network

In 2017, after half a year of trial operation in a simulated environment, China Merchants Bank applied blockchain technology to the three major scenarios of cross-border direct settlement, global account unified view, and cross-border fund collection in the field of global cash management. This is the first commercialization of blockchain projects in China.

In 2018, China Merchants Bank teamed up with Wing Lung Bank and Wing Lung Shenzhen Branch to realize the world's first inter-bank cross-border RMB settlement business based on blockchain technology.

Cross-border direct liquidation is obviously the blockchain application field that China Merchants Bank most values ​​and is good at.China Merchants Bank's future plan is to first integrate all its overseas institutions into the global blockchain cross-border clearing system, and then establish a cross-bank platform with wider coverage among peers. Blockchain technology is highly adaptable in the field of cross-bank and cross-border finance. If more banks participate in the construction of blockchain cross-border settlement platforms in the future, the banking liquidation process and user experience will be improved.

In addition to cross-border business, China Merchants Bank is also exploring the digital signing of peers based on the alliance chain and building a customer-centric customer information sharing platform. These explorations are all aimed at helping banks improve efficiency and reduce risks when conducting business.

However, it needs to be noted that China Merchants Bank's direction and application scenarios in blockchain finance are relatively single, and it is basically concentrated in the field of cross-border settlement.epilogue