The expansion of traditional banking service channels relies on the construction of business outlets as the main means. However, the extension of such physical outlets requires high construction and maintenance costs. It is obviously impossible for the smaller China Merchants Bank to compete with the four major state-owned commercial banks in building business outlets. Therefore, while China Merchants Bank is moderately promoting its business outlets, it has also launched 24-hour self-service banking very early and implemented a national network of ATM machines, which to a certain extent has made up for the difficulties caused by the lack of outlets to customers. At the same time, relying on Internet technology , carrying out a variety of online services, which has greatly improved the service channels of China Merchants Bank.
(1) Advantages of online banking
The competitiveness of online banking lies in low cost and personalized service capabilities. Internet banking will change the bank's operating environment, and the bank's core competitiveness will shift. From scale to technology and service capabilities, the reduction of business outlets will become a trend. This will change the way traditional banks rely on branch expansion. Therefore, online banking will weaken the competitive advantages of the four major state-owned banks and gain competitive advantages for small and medium-sized commercial banks. By developing online banking, small and medium-sized commercial banks can improve their competitive position on the one hand and focus on personal financial services on the other.
With the popularity of the Internet, the number of Internet users has increased. The Internet is no longer a "patent" for a few people. According to statistics, there are hundreds of millions of Internet users around the world. As of April last year, 25 million Internet bank accounts had been registered worldwide, and it is expected that this number will reach 120 million by 2003. At that time, people's access to information will largely come from the Internet. Commercial banks can attract a large number of online readers and visitors by using open network platforms. In particular, potential customer groups with higher knowledge levels will become the focus of competition for major commercial banks. Because there is a positive functional relationship between the absolute number of high-level people and the total social wealth owned. Therefore, many domestic and foreign banks are now optimistic about this class and are setting up shop on the Internet. They have realized that Internet marketing not only affects the bank's current interests, but also determines the bank's future development.
Internet marketing of commercial banks has at least the following advantages:
1. It can completely change the traditional service behavior of passively waiting for customers to come to your door in the past, and actively adapt to the market and face customers.
2. Using the interactive information dissemination method of the Internet, market and customer information can be collected in a timely manner and sufficient responses can be made quickly, thereby achieving two-way interaction between banks and customers.
3. The Internet can overcome the time and space limitations of traditional marketing and provide customers with more convenient and fast services.
It can be said that with the comprehensive and healthy development of networking, online marketing will become an inevitable choice for the development of commercial banks, and the Internet will also become a key battlefield for banking services and marketing.
(2) Seize the opportunity and gain a leading position in online banking as early as possible
In 1996, China Merchants Bank took the lead in launching online financial services: "One Net - Online Payment", and successively It launched a nationwide network of counters, ATMs and customers for personal financial services, and initially constructed the business model of China's online banking. In October 1997, ICBC established a bank homepage on the Internet to promote ICBC's financial services to the outside world and provide business guides to Internet users. On March 6, 1998, Bank of China successfully conducted its first electronic transaction. By 1999, all major banks had accelerated their work on online banking.
China Merchants Bank is currently the bank that provides the largest variety of online banking services and the widest service area among domestic commercial banks, and therefore has the strongest support for e-commerce. In April 1998, China Merchants Bank launched its online payment service, which at that time mainly provided business-to-business (B to B) fund settlement. In May 1998, it cooperated with Capital Electronics Mall, Shenzhen Tianhong Mall and other merchants to open business-to-individual payment services. (B to C) online payment business.
In April 1997, China Merchants Bank launched its own website after Bank of China. The difference is that in addition to some image promotion, it also included the "all-in-one card" account inquiry function, and later added Stock information query. In fact, everyone knows that China's Internet environment in 1997 made it difficult for banks to truly gain confidence in fully launching online businesses.
However, despite seeing a hint of the new economy, China Merchants Bank secretly adopted different strategies from other banks. Since 1997, the Computer Department of China Merchants Bank has been exploring Internet-based business models. This played a key role in their "hit" when market opportunities really emerged later.
At that time, the marketization of the domestic banking industry had begun, and many large banks began to put down their pretensions and pay attention to the quality of services. Smile service, door-to-door service, etc. had become commonplace in the entire banking industry. Something that “you have, I have, he has too”. Obviously, there is no threshold for this simple improvement of service quality. For small banks like China Merchants Bank, their original civilian advantages have disappeared.
However, the initial success achieved after the "One Card" was launched nationwide has just allowed China Merchants Bank to clarify the idea of ??using its own advantages to establish technologically leading services, or to produce qualitative improvements in service efficiency. It is a more stable and attractive selling point than civilianization. At this time, the concept of technological leadership has been clearly engraved in the heart of China Merchants Bank.
At the same time, China Merchants Bank is actively executing its plan to “go nationwide”. To capture a share in the fierce competition as soon as possible, establishing your own outlets seems to be a necessary step. However, China Merchants Bank soon discovered that relying on its own rapid development at that time, it would probably end up being merged before it could grow up. On the one hand, this is because it is far inferior to the four major state-owned banks with deep pockets, and its development speed has been greatly restricted. What's more important is that many businesses based on essentially improving service efficiency are being constrained by the development speed of physical outlets.
For example, the "One Card" has been connected to the national network, but customers cannot find China Merchants Bank's business outlets and ATM machines in many small cities. And although the "One Card" can manage multiple accounts, after all, deposits You still need to go to the business office to apply. In order to solve these problems, China Merchants Bank has thought of many ways, such as drawing on the experience of foreign banks to establish telephone banking services, etc. However, it is always difficult to satisfy people in terms of cost and technological development space. What's even more worrying is that China Merchants Bank's old corporate business has also been striving to innovate. For example, the "customer terminal" service that was later developed was to put a microcomputer in the enterprise as a customer terminal, and then dial up the telephone line to connect to the bank's switchboard, and the enterprise could conduct inquiries, payments and other activities on it. This was a very attractive service at the time, but once the product needed to be upgraded or problems occurred, China Merchants Bank would be in big trouble. Companies could be located all over the world, and the cost of maintenance would wipe out profits in an instant.
At this time, the Internet almost saved China Merchants Bank’s life. At least through virtual methods, business expansion costs can be reduced a lot. And if the Internet is combined with China Merchants Bank's advantages in electronics, especially in the smooth flow of internal information, China Merchants Bank will face a whole new world with great advantages. Of course, in 1997, these ideas could only be called “imaginative ideas.” Because at that time, very few people in China knew about the Internet.
In fact, professionals from other banks have not missed the opportunities brought by the Internet. However, it seems that only China Merchants Bank has shown greater enthusiasm for this, or has developed a more advanced awareness. Obviously, small banks and large banks have different ways of thinking. Once large banks have reached a certain scale, they are more likely to be thinking about how to develop steadily. The strong sense of crisis in small banks forces them to think of some "weird tricks" to break the original system.
In June 1998, China Merchants Bank was the first to launch a B2C online payment system in China with a trial mentality. However, at that time it was only for local use in Shenzhen. After doing a few single-room activities, we found that the daily transaction volume was really pitiful, so we simply did not carry out large-scale promotion.
The turning point came a month later. In July 1998, the Beijing Federation of Commerce held a meeting and invited representatives from the national business system to popularize Internet knowledge for them, and a very important part of this was the concept of online sales. Since China Merchants Bank already supported online payment products at that time, China Merchants Bank was specially invited to the meeting to give a presentation. When China Merchants Bank put its online payment system in front of these well-known companies, it received unexpected attention and welcome. The representatives of China Merchants Bank suddenly became expert figures.
This incident has strengthened China Merchants Bank’s confidence in continuing to lead the Internet. Immediately afterwards, China Merchants Bank began to expand its online business. First, it made online payment nationwide, then tried corporate online banking to enrich the functions of personal online banking, and gradually established the advantages of its own online banking business. Although these actions were carried out one after another, there was still no fanfare. At the same time, most banks in China have a "spectate" attitude towards China Merchants Bank's actions. They seem to feel that online banking is a heretic, at least in the short term.
When China entered the Internet boom in 1999, at this time, China Merchants Bank relied on its online banking to have the most complete business from corporate to private services; online settlement covered the whole country and was the fastest. Suddenly became the "star of the year" in the domestic banking industry. Although the "all-in-one card" was doing very well back then, other people's credit cards were also doing well after all. In other words, they felt like they were on the same page. But now the launch of China Merchants Bank's online banking business is "unique in the world".
In fact, the intangible assets obtained by China Merchants Bank from the Internet far exceed the actual profit income. Currently, China Merchants Bank has about 200,000 B2C customers and tens of thousands of transactions every month. However, compared to the public business, it feels a bit insignificant. When version 3.0 of corporate online banking, which includes online letters of credit, real-time electronic remittance and other new businesses, was launched, China Merchants Bank claimed that the number of transactions in its corporate online banking had reached more than 180,000, and the transaction amount exceeded 320 billion Yuan Yuan. It should be said that these figures are absolutely far ahead among domestic peers.
In addition, 45% of CMB’s private business and 15% of its corporate settlement business have become non-counter businesses. And this proportion continues to grow, which is obviously good news for China Merchants Bank. Because of the road of virtualization construction that he has "eat crabs", he is truly leveraging his strengths and avoiding weaknesses to get rid of the constraints of his "body shape", and is able to give full play to his "intelligence" advantages. From this, it is not difficult to understand why today, when major domestic banks, including giants such as Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, are beginning to exert their efforts in Internet business, China Merchants Bank still insists that online banking is its main business in the future.
If “all-in-one card” is the beginning of China Merchants Bank’s technological innovation, perhaps leading the Internet is the starting point for its way of thinking to be completely liberated.
In the mind of China Merchants Bank, the first priority is market demand, and whether the technology is the most advanced does not play a decisive role. In a sense, the "technology leadership" that China Merchants Bank has been pursuing should be more accurately called "application leadership."
Benefits are the first priority, business is the core, and technology is only a means to promote business and benefits. The fact that China Merchants Bank leads the Internet fully illustrates this point.
In February 1998, China Merchants Bank launched the "One Net" service, becoming the first bank in China to launch online banking services. In September 1999, China Merchants Bank took the lead in launching online banking services in China and established a relatively complete online banking service system consisting of online corporate banking, online personal banking, online securities, online shopping malls, and online payment. At present, China Merchants Bank's online banking is in a leading position among domestic peers in terms of technological leadership and business volume.