On March 31, China’s largest independent financial big data analytics solution provider, Bairong Inc., IPOed on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (ticker: 6608.HK). As an innovative company, Bairong Inc. is the fourth Mainland Chinese company to adopt the same weighted voting rights structure in Hong Kong for its primary listing, after Meituan, Xiaomi and Kuaishou. It is the second portfolio company of Gaocheng Capital to go public this year after TUYA.US.
Founded in 2014, Bairong Inc. is a leading independent AI technology platform in China. It is committed to empowering financial institutions and supporting financial inclusion through technology-driven digital innovation and transformation. Company data suggests that Bairong’s products and services are based on its cloud-native SaaS platform, which can be embedded into the business processes of financial institutions from customer acquisition, loan origination, insurance underwriting, customer relationship management to post-lending management, to enable intelligent decisioning of financial institutions. As of September 30, 2020, Bairong had served more than 4,200 financial institutions in China, including most state-owned banks and consumer finance companies, over 650 regional banks and over 90 major insurance companies.
Jing Hong, Founding Partner of Gaocheng Capital, was the first investor of Bairong. She facilitated the establishment of Bairong in 2014 and has since invested five more times in the company. After founding Gaocheng Capital in 2018, one of the few Chinese private equity funds focusing on technology innovation and enterprise services, her fund further invested in Bairong and supported the growth of the company. Leveraging its in-depth independent research, insights and extensive network in the industry, Gaocheng Capital engaged closely with Bairong’s management in many thought-provoking discussions on strategic investments, capital market access and organizational systems, becoming the most enabling long-term partner to Bairong on its growth journey.
In recent years, emerging technologies such as AI, big data, cloud and blockchain have become increasingly integrated with the financial services industry, giving rise to various innovative business models and driving profound changes in the industry. The era of technology-enabled financial services is dawning. Amid threats to traditional financial services, fiercer market competition and changes in customer preferences, the digital transformation of the financial services industry has long become and industry consensus. COVID-19 added a sense of necessity and urgency to digital transformation and Chinese banks are ready to join this journey.
This year’s Two Sessions adopted the “Outline of 14th Five-Year Plan and Long-range Objectives through 2035” (hereinafter referred to as the “14th FYP”) contains a separate chapter on “accelerating digital development and building a digital China”. It proposes to “embrace the digital era, unlock the potential of data resources, build national strength in networking technology, accelerate the development of the digital economy, digital society and digital government, and drive broader changes in ways of production, lifestyle and governance through digital transformation.”
On the digitization of finance, the 14th FYP sets clear goals for security and manageability of core information technology in the financial industry and security of the financial infrastructure.
Thanks to the progress on the Digital China strategy and the acceleration of the financial “new infrastructure”, emerging and diverse players, underlying technologies and independent innovation capabilities in the fintech space will likely attract more interest and traditional financial institutions will quicken their pace of digital transformation.
In this process, Bairong, backed by state-owned investors and deeply rooted in digital technology, is in a strong position to offer solutions based on its strong technological expertise in AI, cloud, and big data and deep insights into financial services. It can empower financial institutions with integrated risk control and marketing solutions and quickly equip them with skills needed for digital transformation.
After the IPO, Bairong will further deepen the application of AI and big data in the financial sector to help financial institutions transform digitally and the ecosystem evolve in the post-epidemic era. According to the prospectus, the capital raised from the IPO will be used to: further enhance product features and performance; invest in continued R&D; explore cutting-edge technologies and improve existing technology infrastructure; expand existing product and service offerings; and make strategic investments and acquisitions.
Since its inception, Bairong has taken security and compliance as its bedrock. It has been deeply involved in technology investment while balancing innovation with risk, empowering financial institutions and serving the real economy. Bairong has received the Level 3 Certification for National Information Security Protection from the Ministry of Public Security, as well as many top international certifications such as ISO27001, ISO27017 and ISO27018 in information security management. It regards information security as the lifeline of a technology enterprise. It is improving the intelligent upgrades of security-driven risk control, developing whole lifecycle products and enhancing the service capabilities of its products across multiple dimensions.
Going forward, Bairong commits to maintain a reliable, secure, efficient and scalable technology infrastructure, further enhance the company’s AI and data analytics capabilities, and improve the features and innovation of its products and services, in order to cement its technological advantages and industry leadership, truly become the technology engine of financial sector digital transformation, and build a leading financial SaaS cloud platform. Recognizing the market opportunities brought about by the swift adoption of new technologies, Bairong looks forward to even stronger growth and greater success beyond its IPO.
