Since Bank of China issued the first domestic credit card-BOC Card in 1985, China's credit card business has experienced a rapid development stage after the initial market cultivation stage. By the end of 2007, the number of credit cards issued in China reached 99.76 million, an increase of 69.65% compared with 2006, and the number of users was 3 1.77 million, an increase of 54.22%. Based on the gradual strengthening of bank promotion, the continuous improvement of credit card environment, the enhancement of credit card awareness of social groups, the expansion of convenient payment and repayment channels, and the strengthening of bank risk control ability, the scale of credit card users in China is expected to reach 45 million in 2008, and the scale of credit card market will reach 654.38+0.4 billion. With the continuous expansion of credit card business, the number of domestic credit card issuers has greatly increased, and the competition has become fierce. By the end of 10 in 2007, there were 15 credit card issuers in China, and the number of cards issued exceeded 50 million. At the same time of the explosive growth of China's credit card business, the credit card business of China's regional banking institutions (hereinafter referred to as "regional institutions") is in its infancy, facing fierce market competition.
China's regional institutions mainly include five types of financial institutions: city commercial banks, city credit cooperatives, rural commercial banks, rural cooperative banks and rural credit cooperatives. With the deepening of China's economic reform, the number of small and medium-sized enterprises has increased significantly, which has created a good market foundation for the development of credit card business of regional institutions. Credit card is the product of a certain stage of economic development. China's economic development is unbalanced, and the credit card business of rural regional financial institutions is restricted by funds and technology. In recent years, in the process of developing credit card business, regional institutions have faced many problems, such as insufficient capital, lack of professionals engaged in credit card business, insufficient innovation ability of products and services, low social recognition of their own credit products, few business outlets, relatively few customer resources, and difficulty in forming economies of scale. At present, many regional banking institutions in China can not fully meet the requirements of opening credit card business in terms of capital adequacy ratio, non-performing assets ratio and liquidity, which has become a "bottleneck" for their development of credit card business. In addition, due to the scale of business and other reasons, regional institutions often cannot get effective support from card organizations in credit card business and technology. Compared with the four major commercial banks, China Merchants Bank and China Guangfa Bank, the market share of credit card business of regional institutions is still low.
Two, China's regional banking institutions to develop credit card business implementation strategy
1. Relying on UnionPay system to reduce the cost of issuing cards.
First of all, China UnionPay has established a powerful new electronic payment service platform. Based on this platform, regional institutions can provide more diversified payment services for their customers and make up for the shortage of their outlets. Secondly, regional banking institutions can entrust a third-party specialized service organization to carry out card-issuing data processing outsourcing, host hosting, disaster backup and other services, so as to reduce the investment in the card-issuing system and reduce the card-issuing cost. At present, dozens of domestic banks, such as Industrial Bank, Minsheng Bank, Nanjing Commercial Bank and Ningbo Commercial Bank, have solved the problem of excessive one-time investment in credit card issuance system through third-party services, effectively reducing the operating cost of credit cards. Thirdly, issuing co-branded cards with local governments, other regional institutions and enterprises will become the development trend of credit card business of regional institutions. Regional institutions should strengthen business cooperation with relevant parties and make efforts to promote the above cooperation with the help of various resources of China UnionPay.
2. Give full play to its own advantages and provide personalized credit card products.
At present, China's regional institutions account for about half of the national bank outlets, close to consumers, and a large part of their customers are small and medium-sized enterprises, farmers and rural migrant workers. First of all, it should show its personalized characteristics in design, such as transparent credit cards and photo cards introduced by some banks. These credit cards with unique personal logos can not only create product differentiation, but also further ensure the security of credit cards. In credit card marketing, banks should also pay attention to the establishment and maintenance of brands, attract consumers by creating brands, and strengthen product differentiation. Secondly, the premise of providing personalized products needs targeted and accurate market segmentation, and regional institutions should design personalized products and formulate corresponding marketing strategies according to the characteristics of each market segment. For example, some banks have introduced "migrant workers' credit card special service", "counter access" and "Olympic theme credit card", which have been welcomed.
3. Accelerate technological innovation and improve the credit card service system
Nowadays, the customer service of bank cards has completely relied on computer, network and communication technology. Firstly, the IT system is used to rectify the business personnel and business processes, manage the customer resources of the enterprise, and systematically analyze the customer composition and historical transactions. Secondly, explore new channels for card processing. With the rapid development of credit card industry, credit card processing channels are becoming more and more diversified. Online card processing channels, such as my love card website, attract 13.89% users and become an important new channel for card processing. Thirdly, the regional institutions operating credit cards have relatively weak business foundation and limited customer resources, so customer relationship management should be strengthened. To this end, regional institutions should collect market information and customer needs, find out the truly profitable customers, conduct marketing, and provide interactive and humanized services, so as to understand the real needs of customers, improve customer loyalty, and then improve the breadth and depth of services.
4. Improve the governance structure and implement specialized and intensive management.
First of all, professional development provides conditions for regional institutions to enter the card issuing market without huge investment. For example, First Data Company of the United States, which entered the China market in 2002, China UnionPay Data Service Co., Ltd., which was established in 2003, and other outsourcing service companies began to provide services for banks in the fields of business card printing, bill printing, data entry, sales agency and collection. Secondly, intensive management is the development trend of China's credit card business. At present, China Merchants Bank, China Construction Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank, Bank of China and Guangfa Bank have all set up their own credit card centers. By introducing foreign hardware and software equipment and experts, the centralized batch processing of credit card business from card application to authorized settlement has been initially realized. In short, China's regional institutions should seize the opportunity of reform and restructuring, further improve the governance structure, establish a good management mechanism, and promote the comprehensive and rapid development of credit card business.