China Merchants Bank to start financial education program

China Merchants Bank, one of the major lenders in China, will launch a program for financial education, aimed to foster public financial awareness and upgrade consumer financial services, said the firm's top management on Thursday.

"Given recurring financial fraud, it is vital for the public to learn financial knowledge and enhance risk awareness," said Liu Jianjun, vice-president of the bank. "Within the program, we plan to spread financial knowledge through a number of channels, ranging from online short video and offline micro courses to printed finance books."

"In the years to come, we will be dedicated to updating 100 episodes of popular science short videos, organizing 10,000 financial classes at the bank's branch networks, and issuing 1 million finance books, offering financial knowledge in an interesting manner," Zhang Dong, president of the lender's Retail Banking Department at its headquarters, further introduced the plan.

"We will also integrate financial education with public service activities," Zhang added. "The bank will offer financial courses for students in impoverished areas, in a bid to help them shake off poverty through wealth management knowledge."

According to Liu, the core concept of the program is "sharing", through which the general public can acquire basic financial knowledge to combat financial deception and better manage their wealth.

Moreover, with artificial intelligence and big data in its toolkit, the bank pledged to better ensure users' transaction safety through its intelligent risk control system, which can effectively identify false information and provide risk warnings accordingly.

In the past three years, the bank has offered risk management services for 3.2 billion transactions, preventing users from losing about an average amount of 30 million yuan every month, Zhang stated.

Li Jingya contributed to this story.