The local banking regulator urged domestic banks yesterday to shift lending priorities from large to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as large businesses have easy access to funds while small businesses have difficulty getting even mortgage loans.

Overseas lenders, with four of them starting off as local entities this week, are embarking on a major promotion to woo small firms, a sector their Chinese rivals are usually less enthusiastic about.

"SMEs are the last gold mine for banks," Zhang Rongfang, a division chief of the Shanghai office of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), said yesterday. To draw banks' attention to SMEs, the city will hold a joint financing services fair this month.

The local banking regulator says there are more than 100 financial products designed by banks to target small firms. But bank lending hardly meets small firms' capital needs.

"Small firms are valuable for banks. They can enhance banks' ability to negotiate with clients and their capability to find, follow and nurture clients," Zhang said.

Figures released by the CBRC indicate that outstanding bank lending to Chinese SMEs reached 5.35 trillion yuan at the end of 2006, an increase of 15.8 percent from the beginning of the year. SMEs, usually companies with annual revenue of less than 30 million yuan, accounted for only 23.7 percent of total yuan loans last year.

Small firms can be very profitable. The 116 companies listed on the SME board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange generated total revenue of 1.06 billion yuan in 2006, up 30.13 percent year-on-year, the reason why foreign banks are increasingly drawn toward them.

UK-based Standard Chartered Bank is running a publicity campaign for its non-mortgage loans to SMEs. Small companies can borrow between 100,000 and 500,000 yuan from the bank's outlets in Shanghai and Shenzhen without any collateral.

(China Daily April 5, 2007)