"I'm raising a bird," said architect Fang Ke quipped when talking about work. This is also the problem-solving solution to the problems of small and micro finance after the "big tit system" and "big goose system".

"I'm raising a bird", when talking about work, architect Fang Ke quipped.

On July 18, 2022, the new generation of risk control system code-named "Bailing System" he participated in was officially unveiled. This is also the problem-solving problem-solving of small and micro finance after online merchant bank after the "big tit system" and "big goose system".

In the field of small and micro finance, there has always been a very vivid metaphor.

Financial institutions do credit, just like doing airplanes, comparing who can fly higher, comparing who can provide loans to large enterprises better, and who can see who has a higher amount. However, Xiaowei Credit does not make airplanes, but helicopters. Helicopters compare who can fly lower, who can better serve small businesses and provide small loans.

Domestic small and micro credit has been developing for many years, but truly entering "ultra-low-altitude flight" is the decade when digital credit begins to develop. Today, we might as well take Ant Commercial Bank, a bank specializing in small and micro finance, as a sample to see how domestic small and micro credit creates "helicopters" step by step.

01. One dollar loan

What is the amount of the first pure online micro loan in the country? The answer is 1 yuan, yes, you heard it right.

At 1:28 on April 13, 2010, the small business loan function of Alibaba Finance (the predecessor of Ant Commercial Bank) was launched. An e-commerce seller named Wang Wenqiang clicked out of curiosity and entered 1 yuan. After 3 minutes, the money was received. Wang Wenqiang was surprised that the whole process was not required to go to outlets, mortgages or guarantees, which was completely different from the "normal" credit application method.

This loan with an amount of only 1 yuan has become the first Internet loan in the country, and ultra-low-altitude flight has reached the level of "ground-sticking". Although the interest rate is negligible, it ends a period of history, which is the history of almost no financial institutions covering small business loans below 1 million.

The birth of this loan has two era backgrounds: global financial crisis and cloud computing emerged.

In 2008, the Small and Medium Enterprises Department of the National Development and Reform Commission released data saying that 67,000 small and medium-sized enterprises across the country went bankrupt in the first half of the year. The difficulty of small business loans is particularly contradictory when a global financial crisis breaks out. At that time, all the sellers on the Alibaba platform were small and micro enterprises, and I had a deep understanding of this.

Stimulated by demand, Alibaba Finance was established to try to find solutions. Data algorithms and cloud computing technology are also emerging at this time. Engineers think this technology is a solution to the problem: using small enterprises' operating data on the Internet platform, data algorithms provide formulas, cloud computing provides computing power, and speculating on the operating strength and credit level of small enterprises.

Guojun, an online bank credit technology expert who is now nicknamed "living fossils" internally, just graduated that year. Looking back on the birth of digital credit, the deepest impression is that cloud computing is "unreliable". Just like the early days of many technologies, cloud computing was very immature at first. Together with , Alibaba Cloud , Guojun got up in the middle of the night and cleaned up more than 220 failures throughout the year.

Guojun (bottom right) and colleagues witnessed the launch of the "310" model with their colleagues

A group of engineers who "newborn calf is not afraid of tigers" have entered the unmanned land of small WeChat credit with the support of emerging technologies. This purely online small and micro loan model was later called "310": 3 minutes of application, 1 second of loan, and 0 manual intervention. Cloud computing has also proved its commercial value through this battle. By the time the Ant Commercial Bank was established in 2015, Alibaba Cloud had taken the lead in breaking through the 5K computing power ceiling. Ant Commercial Bank, which has tasted the sweetness of cloud computing, has also become the first bank to put its core system on the cloud.

02. The world connects, satellite plugs the internet cable to the farmland

From 2010 to 2020, data algorithms and cloud computing have been widely used by the banking industry, and pure online, unsecured and unsecured loans for small and micro enterprises have gone from "unbelievable" to "very ordinary".

The next step in the ultra-low-altitude flight of small WeChat loans is the destination of rural areas - the weakest area of ​​financial services. Farmers’ main assets are crops, and the degree of digitization of crops is very low and difficult to identify. When the asset value cannot be judged, risk control has nowhere to be focused, and credit is impossible to talk about.What to do if

? The rural financial team of Ant Commercial Bank first tried manual exploration, but it didn't work, the cost was too high; the drone photography, but it didn't work, the range was too small; finally, a bold idea emerged: use satellites, and satellites are super drones in space.

"The most difficult thing is how to let the computer identify what is in the satellite image. For example, wheat and corn are green in the remote sensing map and cannot be distinguished by the naked eye. However, they are not a crop and have different values. This requires the complex computer vision algorithm and computing power." said Shi Zhong, an expert in rural financial technology of the Internet Bank.

stone neutralization

stone specializes in computer vision algorithms and is the technical responsibility of the satellite remote sensing project team. At that time, Kong Yue, who was in charge of the business, was unaware of the skill every time he heard Shi Zhong say that his technology was so good. Once, he couldn't help asking Shi Zhong: "Is your technology really powerful?"

Shi Zhong didn't know how to describe it, so he beat the ranking overnight, a world computer vision algorithm list, "He was the first, Nvidia was the second, and Google was the third." Kong Yue recalled.

In 2020, in Yugan County, Jiangxi Province, 40-year-old farmer Yang Zuobo opened the Alipay mini program on the mobile phone, circled his own plot on the map, and got the loan a few minutes later, becoming the first person to obtain a loan through satellite remote sensing technology.

This new satellite remote sensing technology solves several core pain points: identifying how many acres of land farmers have planted; what they are planted; whether they are planted well, whether they are suffering from pests, floods, etc. This is equivalent to inserting a "network cable" into the farmland, so that the crop types and growth conditions in the land can be connected to the Internet, becoming a proof of farmers' assets.

, a satellite remote sensing risk control technology, named "Big Tit", has gradually expanded from rice, wheat, corn, etc. to more than 20 staple foods, as well as cash crops such as apples, kiwi fruit, and . As of the end of 2021, "Big Tits" has served nearly one million large-scale growers.

03. Transfusion of blood to the supply chain "capillaries"

When the rural financial team where Shi Zhong is located is running around the fields, Feng Qi and his supply chain financial team are also seeking to fly the "helicopter" into the supply chain.

Feng Qi is an online merchant bank supply chain finance architect. The story of a Jiangsu dealer ignited his fighting spirit.

This dealer often spans 5 provinces and flies to Inner Mongolia 1,478 kilometers away, and completes an interview with the brand headquarters. The cost of one round trip will cost five or six thousand yuan. In the end, it is possible that there is no collateral and no guarantee from the brand owner, and it is impossible to get a bank loan.

Supply chain dealers, like farmers, do not leave enough business information on the Internet compared with e-commerce, code merchants and other groups.

20 When supply chain finance emerged, the industry proposed the "1+N" model, which is to rely on the credit of a core enterprise to provide credit or mortgage loan services to N upstream and downstream suppliers.

But this model can only cover large dealers, and it is difficult for small and medium-sized dealers to benefit. This is a big pain point for many brands trying to rely on small and medium-sized dealers to enter the sinking market.

"We wonder, can we regard each N as a 1, based on Xiaowei's own credit, the supply chain network associated with it, identify credit, provide financial support, and become a 1+N² model." Feng Qi said. This is a breakthrough in thinking mode. Small and micro enterprises are no longer regarded as subordinates of core enterprises, but become independent individuals, and their subject credit, trading behavior, and credit habits have all become the basis for credit.

Fengqi

Next, Fengqi and his team, through large-scale graph computing and data processing technology, analyzed the capital transaction network of small and micro enterprises based on the transaction certificate provided by the brand and small and micro enterprises, and gradually restored the supply chain trade relationship network. The supply chain financial system is named "Beast System".

This matter is easy to say, but to restore the upstream and downstream relationship network of small and micro enterprises, it is necessary to build a large-scale enterprise and industry knowledge map, which requires hard work.

"The situation of in the early stage is very serious and it is particularly difficult to start." Lan Xue, technical director of artificial intelligence , recalled.

More than a year later, the technical team did a lot of knowledge reasoning work, grasped the weak relationship line, and gradually supplemented data by launching self-certified tasks to the company, and gradually allowed the 1 to N² mode to operate.

Now, the dynamic enterprise map constructed by Ant Commercial Bank is gradually taking shape, and it can try to restore the relationship between B and B of an enterprise upstream and downstream, equity, cooperation, and the relationship between corporate legal persons, shareholders, customers and other enterprises and natural persons.

2021, the supply chain financial solution based on digital graph computing technology - "Bayan System", was unveiled, and more than 500 brands including Haier , Huawei , Mengniu , Wangwang and other first batch of access.

The average operating loan availability rate of downstream dealers and terminal stores of these brands reaches 80%, and there is no need for brand companies to guarantee and bear risks. Dealers operate all online, zero manual intervention, and one-point coverage across the country.

"I hope that Jiangsu dealer will not have to fly to apply for a loan in the future." Feng Qi said.

04. Let small and micro enterprises master the "steering wheel" by themselves

Whether it is the "big tit system" or the "big goose system", the purpose is to solve the problem that small and micro operators have too little information and cannot enter the "helicopters" of small and micro financial "helicopters" in the future. Ant Commercial Bank feels that such problems do not only occur in rural areas and supply chains. Even among the small and micro groups that have already obtained financial services, the survey shows that 51% of small and micro operators still feel that it is not enough.

Fang Ke, an intelligent architect of the Ant Commercial Bank, who saw this result, was a little surprised, but he also felt that it was reasonable. In the past 10 years, the difficulty of financing for small and micro operators has improved significantly, and the 310 model has become the industry standard. Xiaowei's financial demands have gradually changed from "whether there is or not" to "whether there is or not."

Internal discussion has begun: What other ways can the risk control system have a more comprehensive understanding of small and micro businesses?

Engineers quickly found the crux of the dilemma: in the past decade, Xiaowei's business behavior on the Internet and trading behavior have gradually been identified, but like an iceberg, there is still a lot of "invisible" information under the water. Then prescribe the right medicine and see the larger part of the information under the water clearly.

software engineering major is very excited. "We used to think that Google's AlphaGo and Tesla driverless cars are cool. If we can apply such technology to small and micro finance, it will also feel cool."

"In fact, the basis of driverless technology is computer vision. If the computer sees the road conditions clearly, what we need to do is to let the computer see the various situations of small and micro. For example, restaurants, from business licenses, food business licenses and other business qualifications, to store rental contracts, , water and electricity bills, payrolls and other costs, to meal ordering contracts, , invoices and other vouchers, even tables, chairs, kitchen utensils, shelves, if the user takes a photo, the risk control system can see clearly, recognize, and accept it. Like a senior credit auditor, the credit portrait of this small business will be much complete. "

In Fang Ke's expectations, this is a new generation of risk control system. In addition to having a pair of "fire eyes", it also needs to try to talk to users like a real credit officer, just like AlphaGo can play Go with people: guide small and micro enterprises in different industries to provide corresponding materials, inquire about the purpose of funds and usage cycles of users, and then identify the materials and make decisions. Small and micro finance has also become more warm and humane.

Today, this system was unveiled and was named "Baoling". It is understood that there are currently 26 types of credentials that the "Baoling System" can recognize. In the comparison test, its audit consistency with manual is 80%, but the approval efficiency is far better than manual. In the six months since its trial operation, more than 2 million users have used this to increase their credit limit.

The previous one-way supply model of data risk control has been expanded to a two-way interactive model of supply and demand, which also means that the "310" model of Ant Commercial Bank has begun to upgrade for many years. "Through self-certification, we hope to give users more initiative and give the helicopter steering wheel appropriately to users."

Big tits, geese, larks... These innovative technologies named "birds" embody the gentleness and unique romance of these young engineers. Just as Fang Ke said, "Birds never doubt the vastness of the sky and are everywhere. Just like us, we never doubt the tiny beauty, meticulous. "

Starting "ultra-low-altitude flight" from a loan of 1 yuan, to flying into the countryside and supply chain, and then handing over the steering wheel to users, the process of building a small and micro credit "helicopter" of online merchants is a typical and micro-financial history of China's small and micro-financial technology. Today, when the small and micro-economic economy is under great pressure, we look forward to the continued technological exploration of such technology, and don't stop.