AI Technology Practices at NetBank: Powering 300 Billion Yuan Loans for Small Enterprises

During the recent Double‑11 shopping festival, NetBank—a cloud‑only bank focused on solving financing difficulties for micro‑enterprises—used a team of just 20 people to provide 300 billion yuan loans to 3 million merchants, a success largely attributed to AI technology.

NetBank is the first domestic bank operating entirely on the cloud, serving over 20 million small businesses and individual entrepreneurs without any physical branches.

AI in the Financial Industry – The financial sector’s early adoption of information technology and massive data volumes make it fertile ground for automation and intelligence. AI combined with financial services enables new innovations, improves efficiency, and supports inclusive, scenario‑driven services.

The AI techniques applied in finance include:

Machine Learning: Learning patterns from massive financial data to optimize processes and improve efficiency across business lines.

Biometrics: Fingerprint, facial, iris, and vein recognition for identity verification, remote account opening, card‑less cash withdrawal, face‑pay, vault management, and online lending.

Natural Language Processing (NLP): Accelerating data acquisition, cleaning, processing, and analysis of textual information such as news, announcements, annual reports, and research papers.

Speech Recognition: Paired with speech synthesis to enable natural voice interactions for call‑center support, voice navigation on smart devices, and business inquiries.

Knowledge Graphs: Integrating internal and external data into large entity‑relationship networks to discover potential customers, predict risks, and optimize workflows.

These technologies create diverse AI application scenarios in finance, leveraging rich data foundations to innovate business models and drive industry upgrades.

NetBank’s AI Practices – AI is used to recognize user demand by analyzing funding needs, scenario preferences, and price sensitivity, delivering personalized outreach through appropriate channels, timing, interaction methods, and pricing.

Intelligent risk control, powered by AI, keeps NetBank’s non‑performing loan rate below 1.5%, far lower than the industry average of 5.9% for micro‑enterprises under 5 million yuan.

Over 100,000 indicators feed more than 100 predictive models and 3,000 strategies, enabling a 3‑minute application, 1‑second loan disbursement, and fully automated (zero‑human) lending process.

In inter‑bank trading, NetBank launched a trading robot in partnership with the Shanghai Foreign Exchange, fully replacing human traders and reducing a 100‑trade batch from 4 hours to 44 seconds, while improving risk monitoring and operational efficiency.

The bank’s achievements were recognized with the Global SME Bank Award from the World Bank and G20, honoring its technology‑driven solution to the global SME financing challenge.

In 2018, NetBank initiated the “Fanxing Plan,” opening all its capabilities—including AI—to the industry, collaborating with over 400 financial institutions and aiming to serve 30 million small enterprises over three years.