At this crucial juncture of concluding the 14th Five-Year Plan and beginning the 15th Five-Year Plan, the "Sailing Forward: 2025 Annual Conference on High-Quality Development of the Banking Industry," hosted by Financial World, supported by Ningbo Bank, and with academic support from the China Financial Research Center of Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management, was successfully held in Beijing. The conference, themed "Uniting for Innovation, Focusing on Future Development," brought together experts from financial management departments, academic elites, industry leaders, and representatives from technology companies to engage in in-depth discussions on core topics such as serving the real economy, digital transformation, AI+financial innovation, and risk prevention and control, offering suggestions for the high-quality development of the banking industry.
Anchoring the core direction of high-quality development
At the meeting, several industry experts offered precise advice from both a macro perspective and professional dimensions, providing guidance for the high-quality development of the banking industry. Yin Youxiang, Deputy Secretary-General of the China Banking Association, stated in his address that the banking industry, as the core of the national economy, is the main force serving the real economy, the main battlefield for preventing financial risks, and the main front for promoting financial innovation. Currently, the industry faces multiple challenges, including macroeconomic restructuring and the impact of the digital wave, but also strategic opportunities to serve new productive forces and deepen financial supply-side reform. The China Banking Association will continue to play its role as a bridge, guiding the industry to achieve new breakthroughs in serving the real economy, digital transformation, risk prevention and control, and brand building.
In her speech, Jiang Xiaojuan, professor at the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and former Deputy Secretary-General of the State Council, stated that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, my country's science and technology innovation industry will experience a period of rapid development, with industrial innovation showing a vigorous trend and innovative projects expected to emerge in an "emergent" manner. Furthermore, both industrial venture capital and government venture capital, possessing characteristics of both strategic investment and patient capital, are key forces in science and technology innovation finance.
"Currently, the industry is no longer in a weak position in cooperation, but has the initiative to choose investors independently," Jiang Xiaojuan said. She added that the financial industry must accelerate its market-oriented, digital, and international transformation, seize the new opportunities brought about by my country's technological innovation, and expand its own development space.
Yu Xuejun, former vice-ministerial level official of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and chairman of the supervisory board of key state-owned financial institutions, shared his views on the theme of "Narrowing Interest Rate Spreads in the Long Term: Banks Need to Overcome Short-Term Thinking and Respond Proactively." He mentioned that the operating environment of my country's banking industry has undergone significant changes, exhibiting a trend characterized by "relatively high growth in assets and liabilities, but a significant slowdown in operating income growth." Banks need to overcome short-term thinking and adhere to long-termism to respond proactively. First, they should strengthen internal control and risk management to substantially improve asset quality. Second, they should strictly control various costs to enhance profitability while actively addressing the increasingly urgent need for capital replenishment. Third, they should adhere to technology-driven development, seize the opportunities presented by financial technology development, and use this key means of systematically enhancing competitiveness to gain a competitive edge in the market.
Lu Yao, Professor at the School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, and Director of the China Financial Research Center, systematically explained the impact of AI and big data on risk identification and asset allocation in financial institutions. She proposed that AI and big data technologies can integrate real-time multimodal data and optimize debt transaction structures. By improving the foresight and accuracy of risk control and strengthening human-machine collaboration, they can effectively address pain points in the traditional financial system such as information asymmetry and risk pricing failure. At the same time, it is necessary to balance the application of technology with the prevention and control of derivative risks, providing solid theoretical support for the technological transformation and high-quality development of the banking industry.
"Currently, the global landscape is undergoing profound changes, and the banking industry faces multiple challenges, including narrowing information gaps, risk control, and transformation. However, these challenges also contain opportunities, and the industry demonstrates resilience under pressure," said Jin Mingzheng, editor-in-chief of Financial World, at the conference. He stated that the Chinese banking industry is building a new development framework where challenges and opportunities coexist. Specifically, he mentioned that, on the one hand, the industry's role as a ballast stone is becoming increasingly solid, and a multi-tiered, broad-coverage, and differentiated banking service system is becoming more and more complete. On the other hand, new growth drivers are continuously accumulating, with the industry shifting from a focus on scale to improving quality and efficiency. Digital transformation is advancing in depth, and new technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data models are reshaping business processes and service models, providing technological support for solving the problems of difficult and expensive financing.
Collision Differentiation and New Path of Technological Integration
During the thematic dialogue on "New Paths for Differentiated Development of Financial Institutions," senior executives from the trust, consumer finance, and banking industries unanimously agreed that "homogeneous involution" is unsustainable in a low-interest-rate environment, and differentiated competition has become an inevitable choice.
Xiao Ying, Chairman of National Trust, emphasized that trust institutions should return to their core service mission, leveraging the legal advantages of risk isolation, asset independence, and institutional safeguards to focus on specialized areas such as long-term investment and provide professional, customized services. Cao Ziwei, Party Secretary and President of Xiaomi Consumer Finance, proposed that consumer finance companies need to deeply integrate into the industry chain ecosystem, utilizing shareholder scenarios and digital technology to focus on the inclusive needs of specific groups, and solve the problem of financial access for people's livelihoods with low-threshold, high-efficiency services.
Sun Xiao, former chairman of Xin'an Bank, stated that small and medium-sized banks need to control costs and increase efficiency through technological means such as credit process automation, and build professional advantages in niche areas such as green finance, elderly care, and education. Wu Guohua, director of the Banking Research Center at the Shanghai Financial and Development Laboratory, suggested that institutions should choose specialized tracks based on their own resources, build professional teams, maintain strategic focus, and construct a collaborative and win-win industry ecosystem.
Artificial intelligence, as a key variable for improving the quality and efficiency of finance, is a crucial tool for breaking through efficiency bottlenecks and activating innovation in the financial industry. In the roundtable discussion "AI + Finance: From Technology Application to Ecosystem Reconstruction," representatives from various financial institutions explored the practical applications and future directions of AI in the financial field.
Han Bo, General Manager of the Information Technology Management Department of Huaxia Bank, shared the bank's practices in building a full-link collaborative system based on AI, achieving a dual improvement in service efficiency and customer experience. Huang Guangming, Deputy General Manager of the Intelligent Operations Center of China Everbright Bank, introduced the bank's achievements in promoting the application of AI big data models. Zhou Beichun, General Manager of the Big Data Department of CITIC Baixin Bank, explained the breakthroughs in the application of AI technology in the field of intelligent risk control in banks.
Zhu Shih-hu, Deputy General Manager of the Inclusive Finance Department of Everbright Trust, stated that the AI transformation of small and medium-sized institutions should adhere to a "lightweight" approach, focusing on low-cost adaptation to business scenarios. Liu Hong-ye, Deputy General Manager of Beijing Bank Fintech, emphasized that AI should be rooted in business and empower rather than replace human resources. Mao Jun-jin, President of Longteng Group China, shared experiences in ecosystem co-construction from the perspective of technology companies, proposing a symbiotic pattern of "finance as the foundation and technology as the branches and leaves."
The successful hosting of the "Sailing Forward: 2025 Annual Conference on High-Quality Development of the Banking Industry" has forged consensus and pooled efforts for the new stage of development in the banking industry. Jin Mingzheng expressed his hope that this conference would establish a high-level platform for intellectual exchange, and that with a more determined commitment, more pragmatic measures, and a more open attitude, jointly promote the high-quality development of the banking industry to a new level, contributing financial strength to accelerating the construction of a financial powerhouse and comprehensively advancing Chinese-style modernization.
