Innovative Services to Enhance the Level of Small-amount Credit for Agriculture
This year's Central Document No. 1 pointed out: continue to develop small-amount credit business for rural households, increase the credit投放 to large-scale farming and breeding households, farmers' specialized cooperatives, and small and micro enterprises in counties. Currently, how should rural financial institutions follow the central government's requirements, adapt to the new situation, circumstances, and changes in the development of the rural economy, accelerate the innovation of rural financial products, further do a good job in rural small-amount credit work, and improve the level of rural financial services? This issue invites guests for special discussions.
Special Guests:
Deputy Governor of the People's Bank of China Da Xing'an Ling Branch, Jiang Quan
Deputy Director of the Office of Hainan Rural Credit Cooperatives, Zhong Hongtao
Multi-aspect Alignment to Expand the Scope of Small-amount Credit for Agriculture
Host: With the continuous development of the rural economy, large-scale farming and breeding households and farmers' specialized cooperatives have become the main credit demanders in the rural financial market. These customers have large loan demands and fewer assets available for mortgage. How can the Rural Credit Cooperatives meet their capital needs with smaller-amount small-credit?
Zhong Hongtao: Our agricultural support work mainly proceeds from the following aspects: alignment of small-credit with agricultural product innovation. For large-scale farming and breeding households, we innovatively introduced joint-guarantee loans for large-scale farming and breeding households, cash flow credit loans, operating rights mortgage loans, and order loans, increasing the loan amount and reasonably determining the term, so that small-credit products match the capital needs and production cycles of large-scale farming and breeding households. For farmers' specialized cooperatives, different support methods are adopted according to different stages of development. For cooperatives in the start-up stage, member joint-guarantee loans and cooperative guarantee loans are issued to help cooperatives grow continuously. For cooperatives with large operating scales, strong service capabilities, many farmers they lead, good management, good credit records, and certain asset accumulations, legal person loans for cooperatives, asset mortgages, leading enterprise guarantees, and inter-cooperative joint-guarantees are used to provide financial support.
Alignment of small-credit with agricultural science and technology training. Only by mastering one or two agricultural practical technologies can rural large-scale farming and breeding households and members of specialized cooperatives truly achieve increased production, income, and efficiency. The Rural Credit Cooperatives actively seek support from agriculture, science and technology, vocational education departments, and regard agricultural science and technology training as an important process of small-credit.
Integration of small-credit with adjustments in the agricultural industrial structure. To better serve large-scale farming and breeding households and specialized cooperatives through small-credit, it is necessary to go deep into the countryside, be familiar with agriculture, and understand farmers. It is necessary to follow the "three-follow principles", i.e., follow the national industrial policy, follow market rules, and follow adjustments in the agricultural industrial structure. Especially when the price of a certain agricultural product rises and everyone rushes to develop a certain industry, the Rural Credit Cooperatives should not blindly issue small-credits; whereas when the price of agricultural products falls or suffers from natural disasters, the Rural Credit Cooperatives should proactively issue small-credits to support large-scale farming and breeding households and specialized cooperatives, because when the product hits the market, it is often the time when the price is good.
Alignment of small-credit with the construction of the agricultural product supply and marketing system. The Rural Credit Cooperatives should actively explore effective ways to sell agricultural products externally and use small-credit to support large-scale farming and breeding households and specialized cooperatives in connecting with large national agricultural product wholesale markets.
Alignment of small-credit with agricultural insurance. Agriculture is a high-risk industry. Once a disaster occurs, if there is no insurance, large-scale farming and breeding households and specialized cooperatives may not even have the ability to restore production, let alone repay the loan. A complete agricultural insurance system can help farmers quickly restore production, get out of difficulties, and financial institutions can also avoid losses of credit funds.
Alignment of small-credit with policy support. Due to the small amount of small-credit, the service objects are scattered over a wide area, therefore developing small-credit requires relatively high costs. However, large-scale farming and breeding households and specialized cooperatives generally cannot bear higher interest burdens. To solve this problem, a small-credit policy support system must be established. Large-scale farming and breeding households and farmers' specialized cooperatives can be included in the scope of fiscal interest subsidies for small-credit, and the loan interest subsidy amount can be increased.
Alignment of small-credit with the construction of modern financial technology. Small-credit involves thousands of households. Simply relying on credit officers to manage it is not only time-consuming and labor-intensive but will also affect the efficiency of processing loans. Therefore, the concept of technology leadership must be adhered to, and network technology construction must run through the entire process of small-credit business.
Alignment of small-credit with the construction of the rural credit environment. Credit is the cornerstone for the survival and development of small-credit. The success or failure of small-credit is closely related to the quality of the credit system. To do well in small-credit, the construction of the rural credit environment must be strengthened.
Adaptation to Local Conditions to Strengthen Small-credit Support for Agriculture
Host: Small-credit plays a very important role in agricultural services. What measures should be taken to strengthen the small-credit support for agriculture?
Jiang Quan: Financial institutions in the Greater Khingan region actively innovate financial support methods for agriculture, maximizing the functions of small-credit, effectively ensuring the orderly conduct of spring plowing and preparation work across the region. As of January 2012, the balance of farmer loans in the Greater Khingan region was 440 million yuan, an increase of 45.06 million yuan compared to the same period last year, growing by 16.07%, with a total of 7872 loans issued, and the loan demand satisfaction rate reached 87%. The Rural Credit Cooperatives and Agricultural Commercial Banks remain the main issuers of small-credit, accounting for 70.5% of the total farmer loan balance in the region. Measures to strengthen the small-credit support for agriculture include: early investigation and confirmation of demand. In response to the warming climate in the Greater Khingan region and the possible earlier spring plowing this year, the Rural Credit Cooperatives in the Greater Khingan region started investigations early, adhering to the "three cooperation" working method to ensure accurate and real data.
Increase the credit limit to support farmers in expanding reproduction. In response to the rise in land contracting and agricultural material prices, the concentration of agricultural land is constantly increasing, and the demand for agricultural production funds is rising. Financial institutions in the Greater Khingan region have raised the upper limit of small-credit from 50,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan. The increase in the loan ceiling has been welcomed by farmers, especially larger-scale agricultural operators, playing an important role in further supporting farmers in expanding agricultural production.
Innovate service methods and simplify loan procedures. In response to the complex procedures and too many approval steps in small-credit, the Rural Commercial Banks and Rural Credit Cooperatives in the Greater Khingan region have launched "one-card-for-all-loans" services, implementing the principle of "one-time determination, use whenever needed, balance control, and revolving use," greatly facilitating farmers in obtaining loans.
Conduct "one-link-three-deliveries" activities to improve service levels. Require credit officers to contact each household, deliver funds, technology, and information to households, realizing the "bundled" service of "credit support for agriculture" and "intellectual support for agriculture"; at the same time, adhere to the "three close services," namely, close to large grain growers, returning migrant workers starting businesses, and remote village groups, regularly providing them with on-site loan processing services.
Extend Strengths and Improve Farmers' Credit Information Archives
Host: What difficulties and problems exist in the development of small-credit, and how to solve these problems?
Jiang Quan: Difficulty in identifying farmers' loan information. It is difficult to obtain authoritative recognition of the land quantity and operating conditions of some farmers. A large amount of land flows outside of supervision, many properties and farm machinery lack corresponding certificates, and farmers' operating projects often have a certain degree of uncertainty. At the same time, it is difficult to grasp the direction of loan funds because the use of farmers' funds is often untraceable. The resulting credit risks are very large.
Farmers' property rights procedures are not standardized, loan applications are single, and loan application amounts are limited. Some farmers' land property rights procedures are mostly written proofs issued by local township governments, without standard property rights procedures issued by the land department, so financial institutions cannot issue mortgage loans to farmers. Farmers can only apply for joint-guarantee loans, and the issuance amount of joint-guarantee loans is not high, unable to meet the production fund needs of some farmers.
Small-credit has many hidden dangers. On the one hand, in order to save on small-credit management costs, financial institutions implement the customer manager regional management method. When the customer manager leaves the credit position or undergoes job rotation, it is difficult to define the responsibility for credit management, easily causing credit risks and moral risks due to unclear responsibilities. On the other hand, some financial institutions lower the necessary risk prevention standards in order to compete for farmers' loan business, increasing the risk of repeated credit granting, thus raising the debt ratio of farmers' loans and increasing the repayment risk隐患.
For this reason, the following suggestions are proposed:
Improve farmers' credit information archives system and achieve information sharing as soon as possible. On the one hand, urge rural financial institutions to continuously improve existing farmers' archives, appropriately increase farmers' loan situation records, and form complete farmers' credit archives based on this, providing a basis for farmers' credit assessment and effective control of credit risks. On the other hand, gradually realize information sharing of farmers' credit among financial institutions to effectively prevent the risk of repeated credit granting.
Strengthen the rural land registration system. It is suggested that through government-led coordination between land-related departments and township governments, solve the standardization issues of farmers' land property rights procedures, make farmers' land property rights procedures complete, relevant departments can soon improve the rural land registration system, incorporate the number of lands outside supervision into the authoritative management system, allow financial institutions to obtain true land information, and suggest that villagers' committees can actually undertake the responsibility of providing information on farmers within their jurisdiction and update these information in a timely manner. Allow farmers to normally apply for mortgage loans and expand sources of production funds. http://www.xyxdw.com/