PRCbanking system,
Chinese commercial banks,
financial technology(fintech),
bankdigitalization index,
digital transformation,
BANK of China
Abstract
China’s digital banking market is actively developing.At the same time,in the digital transformation area,Chinese banks achieve uneven results,thus hindering a comprehensive assessment of their competitiveness level.This creates the necessityfor developing an impartial instrument to perform such an assessment.To assess the effectiveness of commercial banks based on the extent of their digitalization,the author suggests using the Bank Digitalization Index (BDI),which he developed.The index was calculated based on the annual accounts of ten large listed commercial banks in the PRC for 2022. To provide more specific examples, the digitalization strategies of three banks with distinct attributes -the Bank of China,the Bank of Communications,and Ping An Bank - were examined. The index criteria were selected according to the experience of previous studies and based on the available data. Relative criteria were of higher value.All criteria were grouped into three blocks: corporate,research,and mobile banking.Following the evaluation results,Ping An Bank, China Merchants Bank, and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China were the ranking leaders. The author concludes that the Chinese banks’digital transformation strategies have taken on similar characteristics at this stage, making state-owned and private commercial bank groups equally competitive in digital and financial technology.
