At the lobby of Yangpu Branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, No. 383 Songhu Road, Shanghai's first “government-bank” enterprise service station, supported by the Market Regulatory Bureau, was officially opened to extended the company registration service to bank branches.
The ICBC branch is located in the Wujiaochang locality, a center of enterprises and incubators. During our visit, in a small office room of about 10 square meters, a bank staff was helping a business owner with registration. After the application was submitted from the branch, it would be sent to the market regulatory authorities for review immediately, and upon approval, the business owner would soon receive his business license via shipping. At present, the service station provides a variety of services for companies, including registration, annual report, fast account opening and financial policy consultancy.
Before establishing this station, to set up a company, business owners would have to visit the market regulatory authority, the stamp carving agent and the bank to respectively acquire the business license, the official seal and the bank account, like a "series circuit". However, with this station, services are conducted in a "parallel" manner, where the market regulatory authority and the bank can reduce their timeframe by implementing different things at the same time, so that "business owners can complete in 4 days from issuing the business license to opening the bank account, saving 3 business days".
The reasons government bodies would cooperate with banks are: First, in identity verification, as it is necessary to carry out real-name authentication of shareholders for enterprise registration, banks are connected to the public security data systems, which has technical advantages. Second, the bank branches are well-established and the facilities are well equipped. Third, professionally, banks can provide companies with a package of financial services including account opening, settlement, financing, listing consulting and cross-border services. As the pilot efforts expand, market regulators will consider offering more service at the station.
