MYBank, an online commercial bank, has plans to expand its financial services to 2,000 rural counties in China by 2025.

This will more than double the number of rural counties served by the bank over the coming four years.

Founded in 2015, Ant Group-backed MYbank has provided financial services to customers in more than 750 Chinese counties.

The bank said it had served more than 35.07 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) at the end of last year, a 70% increase compared to nearly 20.87 million at the end of 2019.

This growth is attributed to the company’s continuous expansion in rural areas.

The bank posted a non-performing loan ratio at 1.52%, compared to the average of 2.99% for SME loans in the country as of June last year.

MYbank president Xiaolong Jin said: “We have continued to record remarkable growth in customer base for five consecutive years.

“We expect rural finance to play a significant role in advancing financial inclusion, and will further our efforts to make rural finance more accessible with our financial institution partners.”

MYbank adopts ‘310 model’ for SME financing. This model provides a collateral-free business loan that can be applied on a mobile phone within three minutes.

The business loan is approved in less than one second without any human intervention, Mybank noted.

MYbank uses risk management solutions, image recognition and remote sensing to offer farmers with easy access to credit services. This eliminates the need for long processes or filing paper documents for a loan.