Distrust bankers? Here's one who may win you over

Jerry Zhang, chief executive officer of Shanghai Hongli Information Technology Co, said he is pretty picky about bankers.

More than a decade of experience has taught him that gregarious, cocksure bankers are all talk and little help.

“They tend to tout fancy banking solutions to you,” said Zhang, “but it often turns out that you have to pay a handsome service fee for that solution, which they tend not to mention.”

Hongli Information, which has been in operation six years, offers smart solutions for the tourism and transportation industries. It encountered a financial crunch during the coronavirus pandemic.

Just one week before a loan from Shanghai Pudong Development Bank was due to expire, the company found itself in trouble. Clients were late in arrears on bill payments, and there weren’t enough funds on hand to pay off the loan on time.

Zhang called Sun Jie, his client manager at the bank, for help.

Sun, 34, works at the Xuhui sub-branch of Pudong Development Bank, where he serves in corporate banking and trade finance.

After hearing Zhang’s problem, Sun led his team in developing a “first-aid plan” for the tech firm, based on its credit performance.

It took only five days to complete a process that enabled Zhang’s company to renew the loan without repayment of the principal -- the first “rescue” of its kind in the city’s banking sector.

The loan to Hongli Information is a financing solution initiated by the Shanghai Science and Technology Commission and jointly promoted by Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Center, third-party guarantor companies and banks. It is aimed at giving faster loan access to small and medium-sized technology enterprises.

Zhang said he was very surprised by the speed and efficiency of a response that helped his company weather the crisis.

With Sun’s help, the software company was spared from repaying the due principle and only need to pay the interest.

Sun said it was all in a day’s work.

He was born into a working-class family and majored in accounting in Shanghai University.

“My dad's grandfather used to work in a bank,” Sun recalled. “When I was a child, I was very impressed by his job. After I graduated, I wanted to apply what I learned to banking and to banks that offered me the chance to use my knowledge.”

Credibility is the bedrock of Sun’s career.

“You have to be knowledgeable about all aspects of your job and project an image of professionalism and trustworthiness,” Sun told Shanghai Daily.

That is easier than it sounds.

But Sun's 13-member team, which handles about 800 corporate clients, is dedicated to customer service – in deeds as well as words. Of particular concern are the needs of smaller firms.

To provide exclusive services for technology enterprises, Sun set up a project-based team, which can make fast responses to client needs.

By the end of June, the team had served more than 300 tech firms, extending 410 million yuan (US$59.3 million) in loans to 49 of them. That was about 50 percent higher than six months earlier.

Since he joined the bank in 2008-his first and the only job so far, Sun has served in a variety of capacities, starting as a bank lobby manager and rising to a personal loan account manager, a financial manager and a corporate account manager. He is now, in effect, a multifaceted banker.

When he worked in marketing for the bank between 2011 and 2016, social networking tools such as WeChat were not yet as popular as they are today. So Sun traveled with his feet to all the communities within a radius of 1.5 kilometers of the branch, an area of some 100,000 residents.

Working with neighborhood committees, he distributed financial information packets door to door, warned people about the dangers of telemarketing fraud and popularized the idea of investing for the future.

He wore out two pairs of shoes a month, causing his family to wonder at the cost of shoes in bank work.

In the busiest week, Sun handled 347 teleconferences, with a total call time of 1,039 minutes. The young guy was so devoted to his work that he could not spare time to fall into love.

As early as 2012, Sun initiated night marketing.

With only a folding table, a portable power supply and a fluorescent board, Sun and his team would show up at 6pm in neighborhood centers or community squares to explain the ABCs of finance to local residents. The “performances” included drawings and videos.

In the past 12 years, Sun has had many opportunities to quit such grassroots work, but he has persisted because he believes that banking needs to build closer relationships with common people.

Commitments like Sun’s are becoming more important in an era where traditional banking is being challenged by new technologies, and banks are being forced to leapfrog into a new era where personalization is at the center of business models.

Banks can deliver meaningful and powerful personalized services by using their existing data and tapping everyday customer touchpoints, a recent BCG report said.

Talent and dedication like Sun’s are key toward achieving that goal.

“Sun is one of the most trustworthy banking officers I have ever met,” Hongli’s Zhang said. “I think we will be lifetime business partners and even friends.”