Recently, a carrier rocket carrying China Merchants Bank's "CMB Golden Sunflower" satellite and SPD Bank's "SPD Digital Intelligence" satellite successfully launched from waters near Rizhao, Shandong. Both satellites accurately entered their predetermined orbits, officially joining the global network assembly sequence of China's first low-earth orbit satellite Internet of Things constellation, the "Tianqi Constellation."
This development means that, in addition to Ping An Bank's earlier launches of the "Ping An 1" and "Ping An 2" IoT satellites in 2020 and 2022 respectively, three joint-stock banks have now successfully deployed satellites, establishing their own distinctive "financial satellite arrays."
Why are banks, traditionally focused on financial services, suddenly flocking to become "satellite players"? Interviews reveal that the primary purpose of these satellite launches is to enhance intelligent risk control systems. Utilizing satellite remote sensing technology, banks can achieve remote, real-time monitoring of loan project progress and the status of collateral, addressing the limitations of traditional manual inspections in terms of timeliness and coverage.
"The core objective for banks can be summarized as 'moving from limited information games to comprehensive data insights'," stated Tian Lihui, a finance professor at Nankai University. He explained that traditional risk management heavily relies on after-the-fact, and potentially inaccurate, financial statements provided by companies, creating a significant "information asymmetry" gap. Satellite remote sensing technology equips banks with "celestial eyes" that pierce through time and space, allowing them to directly verify the operational status of the real economy with unprecedented breadth and objectivity.
China Merchants Bank indicated that after integrating the "CMB Golden Sunflower" satellite into its self-developed retail credit post-loan risk management system for property projects, it can achieve high-precision monitoring of construction progress for new residential mortgage projects nationwide. The monitoring accuracy for construction progress, based on high-resolution remote sensing imagery, exceeds 95%, significantly improving the efficiency of post-loan inspections. The bank can also provide satellite remote sensing risk monitoring services for property projects to institutional clients such as public housing funds and construction departments.
SPD Bank plans to further enhance its intelligent risk control and comprehensive service system. In extreme scenarios like major natural disasters, it aims to quickly restore and provide essential basic financial services via satellite links. Ping An Bank is utilizing its already-launched IoT satellites to construct an integrated space-ground IoT solution, serving supply chain finance scenarios.
Professor Tian Lihui emphasized that the banks' "space enthusiasm" is not merely chasing a trendy concept. Its profound significance lies in upgrading the banks' credit assessment models from a "past tense" based on historical financial data to a "present continuous tense" grounded in real-time operational data.
This clearly reflects a trend where leading financial institutions are striving to anchor their services more deeply and firmly onto real, dynamic industrial operational maps. This represents an imaginative technological leap for finance returning to its本源 (fundamental role) of serving the real economy.
In reality, the collective move by banks into space holds another, even deeper significance: deep participation in the commercial aerospace industry, aligning with national strategy. In recent years, China's commercial aerospace sector has experienced explosive growth. Recommendations for the 15th Five-Year Plan explicitly propose "cultivating and strengthening emerging industries and future industries," emphasizing the accelerated development of strategic emerging industry clusters including new energy, new materials, aerospace, and the low-altitude economy.
The involvement of banks injects crucial financial strength into the commercial aerospace industry. On one hand, by launching satellites, banks directly participate in expanding downstream application scenarios, accelerating the commercialization of satellite technology. On the other hand, banks can provide a suite of financial services—including credit, financing, and risk management—to commercial aerospace companies, supporting the R&D and manufacturing of core equipment like rockets and satellites. This deep integration between the financial sector and the commercial aerospace industry creates a virtuous cycle of "technology empowering finance, and finance supporting technology."
So, will other banks follow suit? "The answer is affirmative, but the paths will significantly diverge," believes Tian Lihui. For the vast majority of small and medium-sized banks, the high cost of building their own satellites makes replication difficult. Their solution lies in "borrowing a boat to go to sea"—accessing satellite data platforms operated by large banks or third-party providers. They can then focus on specific scenarios like agriculture or supply chain finance, achieving technological empowerment through lightweight applications and forming differentiated competitive advantages.
Experts generally agree that while satellite remote sensing, as a powerful data source, will see progressively wider application, the barriers to ownership and use will persist for a long time.
"Commercial banks currently applying satellite technology mainly focus on three areas: post-loan risk control, enabling inclusive finance, and safeguarding financial infrastructure. This is specifically manifested in the remote monitoring of assets like buildings, farmland, and warehouses," said Xue Hongyan, a special researcher at Sushang Bank. He added that future application scenarios are expected to deepen into areas such as supply chain visualization, carbon accounting for green finance, and verification for cross-border business. They might even be directly integrated into financial services targeting specific demographics, substantially expanding the boundaries of service.
It is understood that beyond launching satellites, many banks are also accelerating their deployment of satellite technology applications: Bank of China is combining satellite remote sensing technology with AI and OCR to enhance its corporate finance post-loan management capabilities. Industrial Bank has already launched satellite remote sensing monitoring projects in 18 branches across 14 provinces, developing a digital supervision platform for biological assets to enable remote monitoring of live collateral.
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