Mini Program Platform: Exploration of Open Banking
The difference from the previous informationization process of banks is that open banks not only move banking business online, but also reshape business processes and underlying technical architecture. In the era of open banking, banks and industrial partners are in an open ecosystem, jointly operating scenarios and customers, and achieving symbiosis through co construction.
The same applies to China Merchants Bank. In order to build an open ecosystem, China Merchants Bank App actively opens APIs (application programming interfaces) to various branches and external cooperative institutions through a mini program platform, introduces various characteristic services into the app, meets users' non-financial needs, and showcases China Merchants Bank's characteristics.
Since Zhang Xiaolong launched the "go and use" mini program platform, industry research has shown that the number of mini program users nationwide has exceeded half of mobile internet users. While super apps are laying out their own mini program platforms and introducing a co built platform ecosystem, we also see that explorers from other fields, such as banks, are exploring the changes brought by mini programs.
Among them, China Merchants Bank, with "financial technology" as its core competitiveness, began to layout the China Merchants Bank App mini program platform in 2018. Since its launch more than a year ago, China Merchants Bank's App App has introduced more than 130 cooperation agencies, including Shunfeng Express, Gaode Taxi and Wal Mart, covering life service scenarios such as travel, government affairs, people's livelihood and supermarket.
According to product sources related to the China Merchants Bank App, for users, the China Merchants Bank mini program means more diverse products and services that meet user needs and cover diverse areas of life such as clothing, food, housing, and transportation; For partners, we can work together with CMB to extend our service boundaries and provide better products and user experience for over 90 million CMB app users.
Openness and security achieve symbiosis through co construction
Banking everywhere, but never at a bank. In China, this type of business is more commonly referred to as "open banking".
In the industry's view, the innovation of CMB mini programs is mainly reflected in three aspects: firstly, emphasizing the support of openness with security. Empowering partners to develop mini programs with bank level security capabilities, such as by connecting with China Merchants Bank's retail intelligent risk control platform - Tianscale risk control system, China Merchants Bank App mini programs can achieve wool party prevention and control, transaction detection, etc., and comprehensively safeguard the funds and information security of cooperating institutions and customers. Secondly, it emphasizes the empowerment of cooperative institutions. China Merchants Bank provides users with various services without login or registration, and achieves a win-win situation with cooperative institutions by exporting the capabilities of OneConnect's open account system, wallet accounts, payment, digital operations, messaging, and facial recognition. Once again, achieve refinement and regionalization of user services. Quickly launching localized features and local cooperative merchants through mini programs, meeting the personalized needs of regional users and the unique needs of segmented user groups.
It is worth noting that the mini program has also improved the ecosystem strategic layout of China Merchants Bank App. One is to empower external parties and strengthen their core business direction; The second is to focus on deepening services in the field of user life services through continuous construction and layout; The third is to provide comprehensive solutions to industry merchants, forming a win-win situation for all parties. According to the relevant person in charge of China Merchants Bank, currently, the mini program platform has become an important force in the construction of China Merchants Bank's app ecosystem and an important connector between apps and colorful life.
Testing and extending services to users in different scenarios
For openness, banks and internet companies have different paths towards the same goal. Both banks and internet companies are now on the same path - building richer scenarios on their own platforms.
According to cuttingedge data released by WeChat on June 27th, as of June 2019, 8200 service providers have launched a total of 630000 mini programs. The mini program team also summarized the business models of four vertical industries, including retail, brand, transportation, and government affairs, on-site.
The internet is like this, and so is the banking industry. There is a consensus in the industry that in the era of open banking, banks need to step out of traditional fields and provide services to customers in different scenarios, from "individual combat" to joint collaboration. Specialization, refinement, and collaboration will be the labels of future banking services.
The essence of the CMB mini program is also to introduce more scenarios for the app and provide users with richer services. It is understood that the China Merchants Bank App mini program platform has fully covered areas such as convenient living, travel, tourism, housing provident fund, medical care, parking, parent-child education, etc. For example, government public service mini programs represented by "provident fund inquiry", "traffic confiscation", and "tax inquiry"; Supermarket applet represented by "Wal Mart shopping card"; Logistics and express delivery mini programs represented by "SF Express", "EMS", "Shentong Express", and "Huolala"; Self service container mini programs represented by "Youbao" and "Convenience Bee"; Travel mini programs represented by "Gaode Taxi" and "Shouqi Taxi Appointment"; Smart mini programs represented by "smart campus," "smart healthcare," "smart community," and "smart park," etc., form rich multidimensional scenarios to meet the needs of customers in all aspects.
At the same time, China Merchants Bank also collaborates with cooperative institutions such as SF Express, Gaode, and Youbao to invest market resources, allowing users to enjoy exclusive discounts on China Merchants Bank mini programs through a variety of rights and interests activities. Taking the "Gaode Taxi" mini program as an example, the MAU (monthly active users) has reached millions within less than 2 months of its launch.
Changes brought about by agile and ambitious mini programs
After experiencing early downturns, later outbreaks, and current stability, the industry is concerned about the question of which industry a mini program is suitable for and how many surprises it can bring to everyone. This is a delicate collaboration, and it can be seen that the partners are expanding the boundaries of the CMB mini program, allowing it to "pull out new branches and bear fruit".
In the eyes of people related to China Merchants Bank's app, some of these "new branches" and "fruits" are expected, while others are unexpected joys. However, their common feature is "change": the first change brought by the mini program is that the app responds more quickly to user needs. For example, at the beginning of the implementation of the new policy on personal income tax, the China Merchants Bank app quickly caught on to the hot topics and launched the "New Personal Income Tax Calculator" mini program, responding to user needs in a timely manner and receiving recognition from users. The second major change brought by the mini program is the introduction of multiple cooperative institutions, which greatly enriches the ecosystem and experience of the app. In the past, China Merchants Bank App was basically developed by the head office product team, and branches only played the role of "frontline promoters". But after the mini program was launched, product managers, technical personnel, operation experts, and even elites from cooperative merchants from various branches joined the app construction, greatly enhancing their research and development capabilities. At the same time, some excellent mini programs have also developed into industry-wide mini programs, further enriching the app ecosystem. For example, after the "Wal Mart Shopping Card" applet of Shenzhen Branch was highly recognized by local users, the branch extended the benefits of purchasing Wal Mart Shopping Card at a discount of 96% to the whole country, benefiting 90 million users.
The 'same boat' that banks and internet companies are stepping into is affecting us all. Mini programs have become an important tool for the open ecosystem of China Merchants Bank App, and cooperative institutions have gained more customers and greater business opportunities in their cooperation with China Merchants Bank, achieving mutual growth. It is foreseeable that in the future, small program platforms represented by recruitment behavior will develop more unique features, attract more cooperative institutions, convert resources into traffic, comprehensively improve user experience, and become a model for opening up banking scenarios. This change not only affects the future survival and competitive status of banks, but also affects every financial consumer.