What is a community bank?

1882, the german sociologist F. Toennies first put forward the word "community". He believes that the basic elements of a community are: a certain area; There is a certain crowd; Having certain organizational forms, common values, codes of conduct and corresponding management institutions; There are various life service facilities to meet the material and spiritual needs of members. In China, the word "* * * isomorphism" was first put forward by Fei Xiaotong, which generally refers to the social isomorphism of * * * living in a certain area with a certain social relationship as the link and a homogeneous population as the main body of life. Of course, some scholars believe that residential quarters refer to residential quarters with property management, especially residential quarters in cities.

As a social entity, individuals or enterprises in the entity generate a large number of financial needs in economic activities. This puts forward the service demand for financial institutions, and also creates business opportunities for financial institutions, and community finance emerges as the times require. From the perspective of commercial banks, community finance refers to a comprehensive financial activity that provides targeted financial products and services to the community on the basis of tangible or intangible outlets of banks and from the perspective of customer needs by integrating various resources.

The community here refers to the gathering area of various social resources, which is a collection of all economic factors in a certain area, including residents, enterprises, funds, information and so on. It can be residential community, comprehensive commercial community, commercial logistics community, industrial enterprise cluster community, government agency, enterprise community, humanistic medical community, etc. The main customers of community finance business are human customers and small and micro enterprise customers, which basically belong to the target customer group of retail banking business.

The first is the attempt of community financial services of commercial banks.

Providing financial services to the community is an integral part of the financial services of commercial banks. In recent years, with the shift of business focus of domestic commercial banks, retail banking business has developed rapidly, and community finance business has been paid attention to. Some banks constantly innovate service channels and forms according to the characteristics and needs of community customers:

1. Banking services enter the community. This is the community financial service adopted by most banks. The main forms are: door-to-door service (organizing staff to set up service points in the community on holidays, accepting or handling some simple services on the spot with the help of mobile terminals and other equipment), appointment service (providing business service cards or business application registration appointment books during community opening hours, collecting information of interested customers, analyzing afterwards and contacting customers in time for business acceptance) and publicity lectures (holding seminars, lectures, etc.). ). By carrying out the activities of "serving the community" and changing "customers coming in" into "banks going out", banks have reduced their self-esteem, strengthened their customer relationship and combined their banking business with the reality of the community. This method is flexible and low cost, but it often lacks unified arrangement, low coverage, strong randomness and uneven effect.

2. Extend the service hours. In order to meet the needs of some customers to handle financial business after work, some banks have launched a "financial night market", which has delayed the banking hours, especially the private service hours, by 1-3 hours. This kind of delayed service is not common. Generally, in special areas and users with special needs, such as summer, some outlets near the central business district or residential quarters are delayed. The "financial convenience store" of Shanghai Rural Commercial Bank is vigorously promoted by the bank. Is a small bank outlets, in-depth community, close to the market. Its biggest feature is the implementation of the wrong time delay service, opening at night, and extending the manual service time to 2 1 pm. Equipped with corresponding staff, in the evening business, the staff can provide counter service for customers and handle traditional business that self-service machines can't handle. Although the delayed service meets the demands of some community customers, it obviously increases the cost and management difficulty of banks, which is not conducive to improving the efficiency of electronic channels.

3. Explore intelligent services. It is time-consuming and laborious for some outlets to charge for delayed services, and the existing self-service equipment cannot meet the complex needs, so banks seem to be in a dilemma. Some banks have found another way to explore new ways of intelligent services, such as the 24-hour intelligent banking machine (VTM) launched by Guangfa Bank, which organically combines self-service equipment with attended services. VTM develops a new service model through scientific and technological innovation, organically integrates local customer self-help and remote seat assistance, and operates and authorizes applications at remote terminals instead of ordinary tellers operating at the counter. You can apply for a savings card with your ID card, and you can do business with someone at the counter 24 hours a day. Guangfa Bank plans to invest in residential communities on a large scale in VTM. For those businesses that can only be handled at the bank counter during working hours in the past, in the future, customers can also choose to handle them easily in the 24-hour smart bank at home after work and after dinner. This is an important measure for the community financial services of Guangfa Bank.

4. Community financial service mode. The "community finance" mode of Minsheng Bank is a part of its "strong focus on two small" strategies, which mainly includes: first, taking root in the community, promoting the construction of Minsheng Financial Smart Supermarket, positioning itself in high-end residential areas, integrating self-service equipment, online banking, mobile banking experience and manned service; The second is to innovate products, launch a series of convenient financial products such as community customer card and convenient payment platform, focus on the real financial needs of community customers, and help create a convenient business circle around the community in 15 minutes; Third, value-added services provide people with services around food, clothing, housing and transportation. Including regular livelihood services into the community, exclusive discounts for community merchants, and even regular physical examinations for the elderly in the community, square dance teaching. As an important product of "community finance", Minsheng Bank launched the "smart home loan" business, providing credit to eligible community residents and providing micro-loans for consumption of up to 500,000 yuan, which can be used for comprehensive consumption of individuals and families without mortgage and guarantee.

Community finance is an important embodiment of deepening the business and services of commercial banks. The above methods have their own characteristics. "Service into the community" is flexible and diverse, delayed service can improve customer satisfaction, and intelligent service combines the advantages of self-service equipment and attended service, which is a useful exploration of community financial services. Minsheng Bank's "community finance" model has accurate positioning, high starting point and obvious effect. But the "community" here only refers to the residential community, not the community in a broad sense.

Second, the exploration of community banks

As a type of bank, community bank has unique functions and functions. In China, although commercial banks have been involved in community financial services, not many people have clearly put forward the strategy of "community banking", and even fewer people have really worked hard for it. Domestic commercial banks often hope to grow bigger and bigger, with outlets all over the country. Generally, they are not satisfied with the positioning of community banks. The reason is complicated.

Yes In recent years, in the face of fierce market competition, some regional small and medium-sized banks have reconsidered their future development orientation and gradually explored and practiced the road of "community banks". For example, United Bank of Hangzhou has put forward the development strategy of centralization and differentiation, with the vision of "building the best regional rural commercial bank in China", positioning its service targets as "agriculture, rural areas and farmers", communities and small and medium-sized enterprises, and striving to become a real "boutique retail bank" and "professional personal bank".

The strategic positioning of "community banks" is clear and needs to be put into action. According to the characteristics of community banks and community customers, targeted measures can be taken:

The first is to strengthen information collection. There are many community customers with different characteristics, and effective customer information is the basis of community financial service marketing. Only by accurately grasping customer information can community banks conduct efficient marketing and provide personalized services to customers. Sharpen a knife and cut wood by mistake. The institutional outlets of community banks, especially the heads and account managers of newly established outlets, should focus on the types and composition of basic customers, industry distribution and peer penetration in the communities they serve for a period of time, and establish detailed customer information files. On this basis, the existing customers and potential customers are subdivided, the target customers and key customers are defined, and targeted and personalized marketing and service programs are formulated one by one to truly implement the promotion of community financial services.

The second is to improve marketing methods. It is necessary to explore the marketing model of community banks and form a business development model based on relationship marketing. For example, Hangzhou United Bank, on the basis of the traditional customer manager system, implements the community manager system, and gives full play to the role of community managers as a link between community customers and branches. Formulate measures such as "Incentive Measures for Business Assessment of Community Managers" and "Regional Management Model of Community Managers" to explore community marketing model in personnel training, daily management and assessment mechanism. In some wealthy villages and high-end communities, a group of local community managers will be identified, who will be responsible for understanding the needs of customers within their jurisdiction, promoting products and conducting in-depth investigations on customer credit. These community managers are familiar with the community situation and are easy to gain the trust of community residents. Through the "sweep" service, they can find and tap new customers and provide targeted services, which has achieved good results.

The third is to enrich service channels. Physical outlets are still the main service channels of community banks, and should be re-planned and adjusted according to the characteristics and service needs of community customers, so as to strengthen and rebuild the marketing and service functions of outlets. In particular, under the premise of controllable risks, we should fully authorize outlets, such as granting the authority to carry out consumer credit and loans to small and micro enterprises, so that they can meet customer needs in a "one-stop" manner. It is necessary to comprehensively use ATM, self-service points, intelligent terminals, online banking, mobile banking and other service channels to guide customers to improve their self-service level. We can cooperate with supermarkets and merchants in the community, set up financial service points or contact points, extend the reach of banking services, and create a customer experience of "community banks are everywhere". You can also set up a community service marketing team similar to the credit card marketing team under the leadership of the community manager, sweeping the floor and streets, actively marketing and on-site service, and enhancing the tension between marketing and service.

The fourth is to innovate financial products. Community banks generally have strong regional characteristics, so it is necessary to carefully analyze the market demand, clarify the market and product positioning, and organize the development and marketing of products and services suitable for community customers. In particular, accelerate the innovation of personal humanized products and micro-credit products, and constantly enrich the content of community financial services. For example, the launch of a community-specific co-branded card integrating convenience of life, merchant concessions and financial services will enhance the sense of community identity and bring many services. According to the needs of different communities and different customer groups, we can also carry out product mix marketing, such as marketing "Bank-Securities Link" and "all-in-one on a regular basis" to middle and high-end customers who are concerned about investment and wealth management, and marketing capital-guaranteed wealth management products, national debt and money funds. Marketing electronic remittance, online banking and telephone banking for middle-aged and elderly customers who pay attention to risk and safety. For small business owners who often cross-regional capital exchanges.

The fifth is to optimize business processes. Community banks generally have the characteristics of "small, fast and frequent" Customers have very high requirements for business efficiency. It is necessary to sort out the existing counter business processes and reasonably simplify some cumbersome processes, such as filling out forms, reporting losses, handling personal loans, etc., to meet the convenient and fast business handling needs of community customers. For the credit business, we can hand over the pre-loan investigation work such as customer survey and data collection to the community manager, give full play to the role of the community manager, and establish relevant customer files and tracking records. When customers need a loan, they can extract the information at the first time and be symmetrical, which can greatly shorten the loan process.

Third, thinking about community financial services.

The development of community financial services and the exploration of community banks in China are not mature and perfect, and there is no clear and complete model. However, in the course of several years' development, some relatively consistent understandings have been gradually reached. Among them, there are several misunderstandings that need to be clarified:

First, community financial services are not only aimed at community residents. It should be a comprehensive service that serves both community residents and small and medium-sized enterprises in the community. The object of community financial services basically belongs to the category of retail bank customers. Under the mode of "big retail bank", on the basis of traditional personal banking business, we will promote the three-dimensional marketing and comprehensive operation of individual customers, small and micro enterprises and small enterprises in a planned way. Of course, the comprehensive services of community finance are also selective, and large enterprises and industries are not necessarily the marketing targets of community finance.

Second, community financial services are not just the "patents" of small and medium-sized banks. Large commercial banks, joint-stock commercial banks, city commercial banks, a large number of rural financial cooperative institutions and postal savings banks can all participate and play an active role. Different types of banks have their own characteristics and customers. If the service mode is proper, everyone can find their own focus in community finance. The active participation of banks is also beneficial to community financial services. Of course, community financial service is not only a simple repetition of the original products and services, commercial banks should walk out of the road of heterogeneous competition.

Third, community financial services are not only the main body of commercial banks. Commercial banks are the main force of community financial services, but they are not the only service providers. Other non-bank financial institutions, such as insurance companies, fund companies, securities companies and small loan companies, can also provide various forms of community financial services. Of course, commercial banks have the most powerful service functions and naturally have a leading position. Banks should play a leading and coordinating role and organize other financial institutions to participate in community financial services.

It should be emphasized that not all banks are suitable for transforming into community banks. In China, the development direction of large commercial banks is bank group companies, and national joint-stock commercial banks are also moving towards the goal of full-featured banks. Most city commercial banks, a large number of rural financial cooperative institutions, postal savings banks and private banks that will soon come out all have the characteristics and conditions of community banks, and can focus on the transformation to community banks. The development of community banks should not be rushed, but should choose the appropriate development path according to its own characteristics.

However, under the background of urbanization, the community economy is booming, and domestic Chinese banks, especially retail banks, need to shift their focus and deepen their services, and they need to take root and grow sturdily in serving the community economy. This is also an important means of differentiated competition with foreign banks.

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