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E-Banking: Strategic Choice for Modern Banks
Electronic banking has become the strategic choice for the banking industry. This is a view shared by bankers at the 5th China International Electronic Commerce Summit which opened here Thursday.
The application of e-commerce in the banking industry has become a hot topic at the meeting. Senior bankers generally held that the fast development of networks and information technology has brought about unprecedented challenges to the traditional banking industry, and banks have no other choice but to forge ahead by taking to e-commerce.
Wang Xuebing, president of the China Construction Bank (CCB), said the development of information and network technologies has presented the banking industry with a huge growth opportunity. To realize that growth, banks must seek an effective integration of information and network technologies with their traditional way of doing business.
He said that the emerging "new economy" and information technology has reshaped the financial industry, and the global financial industry has actually become a huge computer network.
"Revolutionary changes have taken place in people's financial consciousness, ways of investment and financing. The management of financial enterprises and traditional financial rules are also experiencing great changes," he said.
He said that the banking industry is in fact leading the development of e-commerce, with new financial products cropping up almost everyday, such as credit cards, telephone banking, self- service banking, mobile phone banking and TV-banking, and e-money and e-wallet have also come true.
"E-banking has launched a banking revolution," he said. "If information technologies in the past were supporting banking businesses, now e-banking is transforming banking businesses."
Ma Weihua, president of the Merchant Bank of China, said that, as a capital-intensive industry, the banking industry is the biggest and the most advanced user of computers and network technologies, and is one of the industries that is most suited to the era of networks.
He said that e-commerce has provided the banking industry with a powerful weapon to break restrictions on traditional banking businesses and expand new services.
Talking about China's e-banking, they all acknowledged that Chinese commercial banks have a long way to go to match their foreign counterparts.
CCB vice president Luo Zhefu said that Chinese banks need to make much efforts in developing credit card business, establishing individual credit system, and building a unified business network.
The bankers believe that from the development tendency, it is possible that all banking business can be handled through networks, and it may come true in a few years. However, it is unrealistic to expect huge profits through overnight e-banking and the value of developing e-banking lies in the long term.
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