Technical Articles
2025-01-07

Unlocking the Power of IoT: How Ping An’s IoT Platform Connects 2 Million Devices

Unlocking the Power of IoT: How Ping An's IoT Platform Connects 2 Million Devices

From overcoming financing difficulties to solving operational challenges, Ping An Bank is becoming a pioneer in digital inclusive finance.

Unlocking the Power of IoT: How Ping An's IoT Platform Connects 2 Million Devices

How to leverage digital technology to better serve the real economy and provide financing for small and micro enterprises has been a key focus of the banking industry for a long time. Especially this year, the “Government Work Report” has mentioned financial technology multiple times, highlighting the “innovation of supply chain financial service models” as a key task for 2021. In the industry’s view, the official mention of “innovative supply chain financial service models” signifies that a new service model of “IoT + Finance” will usher in development opportunities.
In the era of digital economy, empowering supply chain finance with technology is a new exploration in China, utilizing IoT technology to support supply chain finance, and the industry has already achieved good results.
For example, Ping An Bank has taken the lead in building a systematic IoT platform that integrates IoT, AI, cloud computing, blockchain, and other technologies to achieve the full process of information data “collection, confirmation, tracing, and verification.” Currently, this platform has been implemented in scenarios such as livestock farming, small-scale manufacturing, transportation logistics, and smart energy, connecting over 2 million devices and supporting financing for the real economy exceeding 110 billion yuan.
Behind this milestone data, why has Ping An Bank led the “innovation of supply chain financial service models”? What has Ping An Bank done right? What unique references can it provide for the industry?
Unlocking the Power of IoT: How Ping An's IoT Platform Connects 2 Million Devices

The Key to Ping An Bank’s Innovation

Supply chain finance has a long history. As early as the mid-19th century, farmers in the Tsarist Russia pledged their harvested grain to banks, using bank loan funds for subsequent production and life. After more than 200 years of development across several stages, why do small and micro enterprises in the industrial chain still face the problems of financing difficulties and high costs today?
Ultimately, supply chain finance was born to solve the blockage of capital flow and optimize the flow of funds within the supply chain. Due to the numerous participants in supply chain finance, the relatively long industrial chain involved, and the different attributes and characteristics of different vertical sub-industries, banks still question the debt repayment ability of small and micro enterprises without real-time data support and credit confirmation.
For banks, it is crucial to identify the credit status of upstream and downstream enterprise customers, understand the real situation of production and operation, and improve risk management capabilities. However, “different industries are like different mountains,” and the awkwardness often lies in a lack of understanding of the industry, which makes it very costly to gain insights.
Pioneer in financial technology, Ping An Bank’s key is to master the logistics, capital flow, and information flow of enterprises through the Star Cloud IoT platform. By autonomously building a systematic platform and integrating various IoT devices, it connects data with physical assets and monitors the operational status of every production device and every operational vehicle in the supply chain scene in real-time, thereby minimizing operational risks.
This not only enables rapid lending to upstream and downstream enterprises in the supply chain but also significantly improves its asset quality. In the past, banks provided financing through collateral or endorsements from core enterprises, while the Star Cloud IoT platform has made it possible to provide financing based on IoT data.
Compared to the previous indirect reflection of enterprise operating results through tax or invoice data, the greatest significance of data collected by IoT is its precision and real-time nature. The IoT platform can better ensure that banks have comprehensive and authentic first-hand data from the data perspective, forming a differentiated advantage.
Controlling risk is the most important aspect of financial institutions’ operations. According to Li Yue, president of the transaction banking division at Ping An Bank, certifying and tracing through digital means can better grasp the actual operational situation of enterprises. In some scenarios, data modeling can replace traditional collateral models.
It is foreseeable that through digital risk control, data is the key. Therefore, where does the core data for risk control come from? Li Yue stated that banks can effectively solve data problems through IoT, which reflects the most authentic first-hand operational situation.
Taking livestock farming as an example, the Star Cloud IoT plan aims to utilize satellites and smart wearable terminals to collect real-time data on animal assets in farms, assess the true production status of the farm, and assist in judging the farm’s operational situation. In the sales phase, it can also cooperate with logistics IoT management to track all live asset sales and repayments, completing the entire loan cycle and forming closed-loop management, allowing banks to effectively control capital flow.
All of this began in early 2020 when Li Yue took over as president of the transaction banking division at Ping An Bank and began focusing on implementing the mid-platform concept. On one hand, it continued to promote horizontal integration of product centers, connecting and rotating personnel in the transaction banking division, rapidly integrating previously dispersed products such as supply chain finance, online finance, cross-border, and offshore financial services into a single solution.
At the same time, Li Yue also promoted the establishment of an intelligent platform center to unify the management of data and systems within the department, building the Star Cloud IoT platform, intelligent marketing mid-platform, risk mid-platform, etc., ensuring technology is controllable, with higher safety and efficiency.
In hindsight, this is a very forward-looking plan. According to Li Yue, through the open banking model, Ping An Bank can access more scenarios, and various data can quickly connect to the Star Cloud IoT platform with user permission, without the need for redevelopment, which is a very core capability.
“All data is authorized by customers and returned to the Star Cloud IoT platform,” Li Yue revealed, “Data on enterprise operations, such as working conditions, water and electricity usage, etc., allows Ping An Bank to provide financing without collateral through data processing, analysis, and cleaning, which is very popular among business owners.”
It can be seen that Ping An Bank uses different data and models to provide convenient and efficient credit services to small and micro enterprise customers, fundamentally solving the problems of financing difficulties and high costs for customers.
Of course, the process of building a systematic platform autonomously is not an easy task.
First, as a comprehensive IoT mid-platform, the Star Cloud IoT platform also involves many industries such as smart manufacturing, smart vehicle networking, smart agriculture, smart energy, smart urban construction, and smart service halls, each with very complex internal industry rules.
For Ping An Bank’s financial technology personnel, crossing industry barriers to autonomously build such a systematic platform presents a significant challenge.
Secondly, at the application level, Ping An Bank needs to deeply understand the industry. For instance, to research the actual situation of livestock farming, the project team visited farms in Inner Mongolia multiple times to conduct on-site inspections of dairy cow farming and production environments, intuitively understanding how IoT devices such as cow ear tags, collars, and milking parlors work.
Finally, in the data and model establishment and application phase, due to the massive amount of data transmitted daily from 2 million IoT devices, the processes of data governance, cleaning, and labeling are also significant challenges.
It can be said that the Star Cloud IoT platform’s technology mid-platform is the core ultimate weapon of Ping An’s supply chain finance, continuously accumulating its industry barriers based on existing business.
According to research, currently, there are no precedents for banks developing their own IoT smart platforms domestically and internationally, and the Star Cloud IoT platform is also in a leading position in the financial industry.

Unlocking the Power of IoT: How Ping An's IoT Platform Connects 2 Million DevicesNot Just Supply Chain Finance

Technological transformation is reshaping the supply chain, and IoT technology is making the supply chain controllable. The innovation of supply chain financial services mentioned this year is opening a new era of IoT. This also provides more possibilities and solutions for financial institutions to serve supply chain enterprises, opening a new door to solve the financing difficulties and high costs faced by small and micro enterprises.
From Ping An Bank’s IoT mid-platform, it can be seen that the benefits of applying IoT technology go beyond supply chain finance. By providing financial services through the Star Cloud IoT platform, it also continuously explores the “digital economy closed loop” consisting of digital assets, digital asset confirmation, and digital asset value realization, achieving open integration and interconnectivity.
On the surface, the main problems faced by small and micro enterprises are financing difficulties and high costs, but if we delve deeper into these issues, we find that a more profound problem is operational difficulties and high operational costs.
How to extend from the foundation of financial inclusion to technological inclusion and solve user operational scene problems through a series of digital services is the methodology Ping An Bank adopts in the era of social digital transformation.
The Star Cloud IoT platform utilizes industrial internet devices for perception, vehicle operation status monitoring, biological sign monitoring, and warehouse monitoring technologies to cross-validate monitoring data with operational system data, achieving customer profiling, operational analysis, and risk early warning.
Based on the innovative supply chain financial service model, it outputs solutions for smart manufacturing, smart vehicle networking, smart agriculture, smart energy, smart urban construction, and smart service halls to the real economy.
On the basis of the data mid-platform, the Star Cloud IoT platform conducts data governance and modeling based on the specific needs of the bank, enabling the effective utilization of data to support the bank’s financial services in customer identification and modeling, while also allowing operational dashboard functions to be returned to customers through mini-programs or H5 to better empower clients.
For instance, after the dairy farm connects to the Star Cloud IoT platform, the owner can monitor the farm’s operational situation in real-time through the production and operation dashboard in the mini-program while on a business trip, checking if the cows’ temperatures are normal, and all these services are free of charge.
This means that while achieving digital finance, Ping An Bank is also making significant strides in the interconnection of industries, promoting the digital upgrade of traditional industries.
Unlocking the Power of IoT: How Ping An's IoT Platform Connects 2 Million Devices
Li Yue stated that besides supporting or upgrading the bank’s financial risk control or business logic, it can also provide significant assistance to the clients’ own operations at very low marginal costs.
When banks practice their original intention of serving the real economy, they also need to provide support for industry development through digital operations or industry internet approaches. In Li Yue’s view, Ping An Bank hopes to not only solve the financing difficulties and high costs of the real economy through financial services but also explore paths to address operational difficulties and high operational costs through the application of new technologies.
For example, based on IoT data from machinery and equipment, a machinery and equipment archive can be established, leading to the creation of a second-hand equipment trading market similar to the second-hand car trading market, where records of how long the equipment has been in operation and how many issues it has encountered can be established to facilitate the circulation of second-hand equipment trading.
In addition to promoting financial services for the real economy, it can also empower the enterprises’ own operational activities through digital operations or industry internet approaches, promoting the digitalization of industrial production and operations.
According to reports, in the future, Ping An Bank will further solidify its service foundation and enhance its service capabilities through various forms of technology applications, contributing more “finance + technology” strength to the development of the real economy.
Unlocking the Power of IoT: How Ping An's IoT Platform Connects 2 Million Devices
Pioneers of Digital Inclusive Finance
China is at the forefront of the world in the digitalization of inclusive finance.
Thanks to continuous guidance and support from policies on digital inclusive finance, as well as the market’s ongoing exploration and innovation of digital technology, the digitalization of inclusive finance is advancing more rapidly and deeply.
Financial institutions are not only providers of financial services but are also striving to become enablers of digital technology solutions. By applying advanced technology and data modeling, they can provide flexible, efficient, and lower-cost financial services while also offering digital solutions to empower enterprises’ operations.
Ping An Bank is a typical example of this, as its path to developing inclusive finance is distinguished by its approach of leveraging technology to empower, utilizing an IoT digital platform to provide both industry internet and financial services for small and micro enterprises.
By focusing on operational scenarios and leveraging Ping An Bank’s accumulated advantages in the supply chain, it provides solutions for small and micro enterprises situated upstream and downstream of core enterprises, fundamentally improving their operational efficiency.
Digital technology is bringing inclusive finance into a new stage of development. With the support of digital technologies such as IoT, financial services are becoming more convenient, accessible, and inclusive, significantly expanding the service boundaries of traditional inclusive finance.
From efficiently and conveniently addressing the financing difficulties and high costs faced by small and micro enterprises to resolving their operational difficulties and high costs, Ping An Bank’s Star Cloud IoT platform has become an innovator not just in supply chain finance but also an enabler for small and micro enterprises in the era of digital transformation.
Ping An Bank breaks away from traditional credit thinking, applying emerging digital technologies such as IoT, blockchain, artificial intelligence, and edge computing to create an intelligent platform system that integrates rights confirmation, tracing, verification, and corroboration, empowering financial service innovation.
At the same time, it deeply integrates the industry chain with financial services, building landing scenarios of finance + ecology, empowering the operations of real enterprises, which has high promotional significance and practical value for the development of commercial banks’ inclusive businesses.
We cannot say that digital inclusive finance will quickly become mainstream, but in today’s increasingly in-depth digital transformation, innovations and explorations like Ping An Bank’s Star Cloud IoT platform in “finance + technology” are bound to be the trend.
Unlocking the Power of IoT: How Ping An's IoT Platform Connects 2 Million Devices

Unlocking the Power of IoT: How Ping An's IoT Platform Connects 2 Million Devices

Unlocking the Power of IoT: How Ping An's IoT Platform Connects 2 Million Devices

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