In the cold chain industry, a common predicament for small and micro businesses is having goods frozen in storage while capital remains tied up in payment cycles. As a critical link connecting port trade and consumer goods, the cold chain sector is characterized by high-value goods, long capital occupation periods, and frequent turnover needs. Most businesses in this field operate with light-asset models, with core assets concentrated in stored frozen goods and sales orders, typically lacking traditional collateral like factory buildings or real estate. For a long time, traditional credit services have overly relied on real estate mortgages, featuring cumbersome approval processes and slow disbursement timelines. This creates a fundamental mismatch with the "short, frequent, and urgent" funding needs of cold chain trade. Consequently, many merchants holding quality inventory and genuine orders find themselves trapped in a dilemma where "assets are hard to liquidate and orders are hard to finance," forming a significant bottleneck hindering industry development.
How can dormant movable assets in cold storage be transformed into financial liquidity that fuels business operations? Anchored in the broader context of building Tianjin into a Northern International Shipping Hub, CBHB, which has deep expertise in shipping finance, has provided a fresh solution. The bank has moved beyond traditional credit thinking, shifting from being a passive capital provider to becoming a business partner that understands cold chains, ports, transactions, and the industry. By leveraging financial technology to create scenario-based financial products and using digital risk control to reshape its credit assessment logic, it has precisely dismantled the financing barriers within the cold chain industry.
Technology Empowers Movable Asset Verification, Turning "Cold Storage Inventory" into "Liquid Assets"
At the 4th Tianjin International Shipping Industry Expo, CBHB, in collaboration with the Tianjin Municipal Transportation Commission, the Hebei District People's Government of Tianjin, and the Tianjin Digital Transportation Economy Research Institute, officially launched the innovative supply chain finance product "Order E-Loan." This initiative is based at the China Agricultural Products Wholesale (Tianjin) International Frozen Goods Trading Market and aims to reconstruct full-scenario financial services, addressing industry pain points such as the difficulty in monitoring movable assets, ambiguous ownership definition, and challenges in value assessment within the cold chain sector.
"We no longer rely on a company's real estate but focus on the goods circulating in cold storage and genuine transactions," explained a relevant official from CBHB. The bank deeply integrates AI and IoT technologies to establish a comprehensive intelligent monitoring system for frozen goods in cold storage. This enables 24/7 real-time location tracking, dynamic temperature and humidity monitoring, goods flow tracking, and online ownership verification, fundamentally resolving the traditional risk control challenges of cold chain movable assets being "invisible, intangible, with unclear ownership, and weak supervision."
Previously, frozen goods in storage, which were hard for financial institutions to recognize, are now successfully transformed into compliant, dynamically monitored, and effective credit assets. This truly turns overstocked inventory into "liquid assets" that are both tradable and financeable.
Data-Based Credit Enhancement Replaces Property Mortgages, Creating a New Pure-Credit Transaction Financing Model
Addressing the core pain point of China Agricultural Products Wholesale (CAPW) cold chain merchants lacking sufficient collateral and credit enhancement channels, CBHB has completely broken away from the traditional credit logic that "emphasizes mortgages and fixed assets." Instead, it has built a new credit system driven by data and enhanced by transaction credibility.
"Order E-Loan" discards the requirement for real estate mortgages. It uses the merchant's genuine purchase and sales orders, long-term transaction records, historical fulfillment data, and market operation data as the core basis for credit assessment. By comprehensively analyzing a vast amount of operational data to evaluate a company's creditworthiness, it implements a new inclusive finance model where "data equals credit."
In the cooperation framework, CAPW, as the core market entity, is only responsible for verifying transaction data and providing scenario endorsement. It does not bear joint guarantee liability nor does it consume the enterprise's own credit lines, significantly lowering the cooperation threshold and laying a solid foundation for the product's batch promotion and large-scale implementation.
"Before, getting a loan required running around to prepare documents and mortgaging property. Now, as soon as an order is generated, I can apply online and get funds quickly. The loan can also be earmarked for paying for goods or freight," shared a frozen goods merchant from the CAPW market with deep feeling. This innovative model of "transaction as financing" closely aligns with the capital turnover rhythm of frozen goods trade, from procurement and storage to distribution. The loan funds are subject to designated entrusted payment, forming a closed-loop management system. This allows financial liquidity to precisely flow through the entire industrial chain—port clearance, cold chain storage, and offline distribution—balancing capital efficiency with credit security.
Linking Port, Industry, and Finance Ecosystems, Financial Support Fully Escorts the Upgrade of "Port Economy"
Currently, CBHB's "Order E-Loan" has achieved batch implementation, successfully establishing a complete funding link covering the entire process from the arrival of imported frozen goods at Tianjin Port to warehousing, trading, and distribution. This constructs a complete closed-loop capital flow within the industrial chain.
The product not only effectively alleviates the short-term funding pressure for numerous cold chain merchants, accelerating goods turnover and reducing operational costs, but also powerfully propels Tianjin Port's transformation and upgrade from a traditional "channel economy" to a higher value-added "port economy." It aids Tianjin Port in aggregating diverse sectors such as commerce, cold chain, and finance, solidifying its position as a Northern International Shipping Hub.
As a national joint-stock commercial bank headquartered in Tianjin, CBHB is deeply integrated into the local strategy of port-industry-city integration and continuously cultivates the niche field of shipping finance. By empowering risk control with technology and defining services by industry needs, it continually enriches its shipping finance product portfolio, persistently injecting robust financial momentum into Tianjin's efforts to build a world-class national leasing innovation demonstration zone and establish itself as a Northern International Shipping Hub.
Moving forward, CBHB will continue to base its actions on the needs of the real economy, deepen the integration of financial technology with industrial scenarios, and continuously optimize innovative products and services like "Order E-Loan," extending the reach of its financial services. Through professional, scenario-based, and digital financial innovation, it will accompany various market entities in their steady development, deepen the synergistic coexistence of industry and finance, and fully empower the high-quality development of Tianjin's real economy and shipping industry.
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