For millions of small and micro enterprises, financing difficulties are often a major obstacle – how can startups lacking qualified collateral obtain start-up capital? How can small and micro enterprises in the foreign trade sector overcome cash flow bottlenecks and "ride the waves"? Faced with the current situation of complicated loan product materials and lengthy approval processes, how can enterprises quickly obtain "lifesaving funds"?
These pressing issues not only concern the survival and development of small and micro enterprises, but also affect the pulse of economic vitality.
To address the urgent needs and concerns of micro and small enterprises (MSEs) regarding financing and to guide bank credit funds to reach market entities accurately and efficiently, in October last year, the State Financial Regulatory Commission and the National Development and Reform Commission, together with relevant departments, established a coordination mechanism to support MSE financing. This mechanism addresses both the supply and demand sides, and coordinates efforts to solve the problems of financing difficulties for MSEs and lending difficulties for banks.
A Financial Times reporter noted that since the coordination mechanism for financing small and micro enterprises was launched a year ago, banks have adopted a series of new approaches to address emerging financing challenges, making the "last mile" of financial services for businesses and the people increasingly smooth. Low-cost credit funds are flowing into small and micro enterprises in greater amounts, at a faster pace, and with greater precision, effectively stimulating the vitality and creativity of market players.
Breaking the Ice in Mechanisms: Solving the Financing Difficulties of Micro and Small Enterprises
The difficulty in financing for micro and small enterprises lies in information asymmetry, difficulty in controlling risks, and mismatched services. Since the establishment of the micro and small enterprise financing coordination mechanism last October, banks have first strengthened top-level design and promoted the "ice-breaking" of the mechanism, focusing on both the supply and demand sides to comprehensively solve the financing difficulties of micro and small enterprises.
CITIC Bank pioneered the "Five Specializations and Five Enhancements" working model. The head office established a dedicated team, formulated specific plans, and optimized exclusive products; branches strengthened overall coordination and implementation, forming a full-chain service matrix. Simultaneously, to bridge the "last mile" of financial services, CITIC Bank innovatively established a street-level "grid management" mechanism, assigning dedicated personnel to connect with streets and industrial parks to ensure "no blind spots." This innovative measure truly extends financial services to the "nerve endings" of streets and industrial parks. As of the end of October 2025, CITIC Bank's outstanding loans to micro and small enterprises reached RMB 1.75 trillion, an increase of over RMB 84 billion from the beginning of the year.
Guangfa Bank has strengthened its safeguards through resource allocation and mechanism innovation, ensuring sufficient loan quotas for inclusive finance, offering internal fund transfer rates 80 basis points lower than other types of loans, and improving its due diligence exemption mechanism to eliminate concerns for frontline account managers. As of the end of October 2025, Guangfa Bank had visited over 150,000 micro and small enterprises, extending credit exceeding 140 billion yuan to 36,000 of them.
Industrial Bank has established a special working group at its head office and branches, and formed a team of over 1,900 "financial commissioners" to carry out a "mass visit to thousands of enterprises and households" campaign. Since the establishment of the coordination mechanism to support financing for micro and small enterprises, Industrial Bank has cumulatively issued loans of over 480 billion yuan to 78,000 micro and small enterprises.
Huaxia Bank, headed by its chairman, established a special task force and formulated a specific work plan to ensure the efficient operation of the financing coordination mechanism for micro and small enterprises from multiple dimensions, including organizational support, digital empowerment, incentive constraints, and due diligence exemption. As of the end of June 2025, the bank had provided loans totaling 121.1 billion yuan to 14,100 market entities on the financing coordination mechanism list.
With the support of these mechanisms, the banking sector has significantly improved its service coverage and financing efficiency. Data shows that by the end of the third quarter of 2025, the outstanding balance of inclusive loans to micro and small enterprises by banking financial institutions reached 36.5 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.1%.
Digital Breakthrough: From "Running Your Legs Off" to "Tap Your Feet"
The demand for financing that is "short-term, small-scale, frequent, and urgent" once trapped small and micro enterprises in a predicament of "piles of documents and endless legwork for approvals." Now, the banking industry is breaking through this predicament with digital transformation, rewriting this situation with services at your fingertips.
CITIC Bank has been deeply involved in the "CITIC Easy Loan" digital product system, not only building a standardized product matrix covering diverse scenarios, but also continuously iterating the online approval process to solidify the credit authorization and approval system for inclusive micro and small enterprises.
In Beijing, a construction company faced a funding crisis due to business expansion, struggling to pay wages and invest in projects. CITIC Bank's Beijing branch quickly assembled a professional service team and decisively recommended the "Order e-Loan" online financing product to the company. Utilizing big data models for approval, the bank approved and disbursed a 5 million yuan pure online, unsecured working capital loan to the company in a very short time, relieving the company's urgent needs.
Guangfa Bank leverages its "Inclusive Finance View" function to intelligently match appropriate credit products based on the operational and credit lifecycle characteristics of micro and small enterprise customers, and provides comprehensive financial services through multiple online and offline channels.
"Applying by scanning a QR code with my phone, the 'Mall E-Loan' application was completed in less than 5 minutes. It's so convenient!" said Ms. Lü, a self-employed individual business owner in Yiwu Small Commodities City. In Hangzhou, Guangfa Bank launched the "Mall E-Loan" online financing product specifically for micro and small enterprises in Yiwu China Small Commodities City, relying on big data risk control technology to achieve intelligent credit assessment and rapid loan disbursement.
Since the launch of "Mall E-Loan", Guangfa Bank has provided credit support to more than 500 small and micro enterprises, with a total loan disbursement of more than 300 million yuan, becoming a "timely rain" to solve the financing difficulties of market operators.
Breaking down cross-border barriers: Helping micro and small enterprises "go global"
“In the past, trade commission payments required verification of each transaction and submission of more than a dozen documents, including the original contract and receipts, which was time-consuming and laborious. Now, business instructions can be submitted online and completed in just 5 minutes.” The sentiment expressed by the finance manager of a cross-border trade company in Fuzhou reflects the changes in services for small and micro foreign trade enterprises going global.
In recent years, Industrial Bank has relied on its foreign exchange business development projects to promote process innovation and build a standardized, information-based, and intelligent foreign exchange business development system, which has significantly improved the efficiency of cross-border transactions for small and micro foreign trade enterprises.
Tariff barriers and exchange rate fluctuations in international trade pose significant challenges for small and micro foreign trade enterprises venturing overseas. Focusing on these pain points, banks are taking targeted measures to help these enterprises expand from their local markets to the global market.
Since the beginning of this year, CITIC Bank has established a special working group for micro and small foreign trade enterprises under its dedicated task force mechanism. This group is specifically tasked with promoting financial services for these enterprises and actively organizing its branches to connect with government task forces to obtain a "recommended list" of foreign trade companies, thereby increasing financial support. Each branch, based on its regional characteristics, is actively building a multi-level, scenario-based ecosystem for government-bank-enterprise cooperation.
In Suzhou, CITIC Bank addressed the pain points of a textile foreign trade company in Shengze, which had light assets and lacked collateral, by using "Cross-border Flash Loan" to complete the approval and disbursement within 24 hours, thus alleviating the company's cash flow pressure after receiving orders. In Guangzhou, CITIC Bank, together with JD.com and Chenghai Toy Association, held a "Export to Domestic Sales" resource matchmaking meeting to build a green channel for domestic sales and help foreign trade companies expand their market space.
To serve small and micro foreign trade enterprises, Huaxia Bank has organized its branches across the country to collaborate with departments such as trade and economic affairs, customs, statistics, industry and commerce, and taxation to build a regional information infrastructure for foreign trade enterprises. With the enterprise's authorization, customized financial service solutions are tailored to the enterprise based on this operational information.
In response to Jilin's "two ends abroad" processing trade model, Huaxia Bank's Changchun branch has customized a special credit program for small and micro export enterprises in the Uganda Industrial Park in Africa, supporting the entire chain of "domestic raw materials - overseas processing - European sales" and helping Jilin's small and micro enterprises to deeply participate in the international division of labor.
