Yu: In September 2020, a joint research group of Visa and the State Council Development Research Center completed the research report "Digital Innovation Boosts Inclusive Finance, China". Our research found that with the vigorous development of digital inclusive finance in China, the degree of digital penetration among different groups of people is very different, which brings the challenge of digital divide.
The digital divide limits the popularization and use of financial technology in rural areas. Rural residents generally lack the application of financial science and technology knowledge and tools, and the digital transformation is slow. Small and micro enterprises are important market players in rural areas and counties, and are important carriers to absorb the transfer of rural labor force and promote the integrated development of urban and rural areas.
Small and micro enterprises in rural areas, such as economic cooperatives, generally have the problem of insufficient digital capabilities. In 20 19, Visa launched the "winter Olympics with her" empowerment project for female small and micro enterprises. According to our investigation of small and micro enterprises in Beijing and Hebei, the bottleneck of rural small and micro enterprises is mainly reflected in two aspects.
On the one hand, rural small and micro enterprises have insufficient digital capabilities. Nearly 70% of the enterprises surveyed did not use electronic bookkeeping, more than 40% were worried that they would not operate, more than 30% were worried about high cost, only 30% adopted online marketing, and 30% said they lacked professional promotion talents.
On the other hand, rural small and micro enterprises have limited financing channels. The assets are relatively single. More than 70% of small and micro enterprises mainly rely on their own accumulation or the help of relatives and friends. Nearly half of the small and micro enterprises said that they had almost no mortgaged assets, and only a few assets came from cash (20%), bank deposits (18%) and real estate (16%).