Abandon the race for scale, and focus on strategic moves in technology! Dai Wei opens a new space for transformation at Bank of Beijing

Produced by | China Visitor Network

Reviewed by | Li Xiaoyan

As of March 24, 2025, Beijing Bank has not released its full-year performance forecast for 2025. Over the past year, market attention has mostly focused on the apparent decline of its asset size “crown” among city commercial banks and the pressure on revenue and profit growth. However, they have overlooked a key strategic move quietly made by this leading city commercial bank under the leadership of new President Dai Wei. In an industry plagued by homogenized competition and narrowing interest spreads, Dai Wei has taken technological finance as a breakthrough point, elevating it to a core bank strategy. Through precise deployment, ecological collaboration, and technological risk control, Beijing Bank has carved out a unique path to leapfrog ahead, providing new ideas for the transformation and development of city commercial banks.

In 2025, Dai Wei officially took office as President of Beijing Bank. From the start, he faced challenges such as declining bank size rankings and sluggish growth in traditional business. Unlike the industry’s common inertia toward expanding asset size, he keenly seized the development opportunities brought by the national strategy of technological innovation. He decisively positioned technological finance as Beijing Bank’s “first strategy” and prioritized serving “specialized, innovative, and new” enterprises as the “Number One Project,” aiming to build the “First Bank for Specialized, Innovative, and New Enterprises.” This decision broke out of the traditional banking industry’s inward competition, targeting the blue ocean market of serving new productive forces.

This strategic layout is not just empty talk; it has already translated into solid business results. By September 2025, the balance of technological finance at Beijing Bank increased by 20.16% compared to the beginning of the year, leading among most city commercial banks. The bank has provided over 1.4 trillion yuan in credit funds to 58,000 tech-based small and micro enterprises, serving more than 29,000 specialized, innovative, and new enterprises. It covers 82% of companies listed on the Growth Enterprise Market, 74% on the STAR Market, and those listed on the Beijing Stock Exchange, as well as 75% of companies on the New Third Board’s innovation layer. At the “2025 Financial Street Forum” parallel session on “Creating a New Ecosystem for the Rapid Development of Tech Companies,” this strategic positioning was officially announced, quickly attracting attention from authoritative media such as the 21st Century Business Herald and Beijing Daily. The reason is that Beijing Bank dares to lead and has taken a critical step that other city commercial banks hesitate to try.

From a broader industry perspective, tech companies, especially early-stage innovative firms, tend to have high R&D investment, insufficient collateral, and weak early cash flow, making traditional credit models difficult to adapt. The risk of bad debts after lending is high, which is a core reason many banks shy away from tech finance. However, Dai Wei is not constrained by short-term risks. Instead, he focuses on long-term development and national strategic needs, using systematic deployment to solve industry problems, transforming what seems like risky ventures into sustainable core growth drivers.

Dai Wei’s tech finance layout is not just about credit lending but involves building an all-encompassing “Finance + Ecosystem” service system to achieve multi-party collaboration and win-win outcomes. Beijing Bank led the establishment of the “Joint Ecosystem for Rapid Development of Tech Companies,” gathering government, industry, academia, research, and financial resources to connect the entire service chain for tech enterprise growth. In December 2025, Beijing Bank co-founded the “Joint Laboratory for Tech Finance and Fintech” with Beijing Information Science and Technology University, deepening industry-university-research integration to support business development. Meanwhile, the bank has partnered with over 3,000 VC/PE institutions, innovating models such as equity-linked loans and equity-debt linkage, shifting from a simple fund provider to an enabler and partner in tech enterprise growth. This has created a new service model of “Commercial Bank + Investment Bank + Private Bank,” expanding revenue sources from traditional interest income to include financial advisory, M&A matchmaking, IPO counseling, and other diversified income streams, effectively optimizing profitability.

Regarding risk management in tech finance, Dai Wei leverages technology to break through difficulties, implementing the “All in AI” philosophy and creating the “1213” AI system. This system includes an integrated computing platform, two major model development and operation platforms, over 100 AI capabilities, and more than 300 application scenarios, building a robust technological barrier for risk control. Using AI algorithms, the bank can monitor corporate operations and public sentiment in real-time, detect early signs of financial deterioration, and control loan funds promptly to nip bad risks in the bud. Additionally, AI significantly improves the accuracy of anti-money laundering, customer identity verification, and loan risk classification, effectively addressing compliance pain points in banking. In 2025, Beijing Bank received a large fine of 31.37 million yuan, but by the first quarter of 2026, no new fines had been issued as of March 23. The initial success of AI risk control has begun to show, clearing obstacles for scaled development of tech finance.

Looking ahead, the value of this layout will gradually be realized. Based on the growth rate of tech finance loans as of September 2025, by 2027 at the latest, Beijing Bank’s tech loan balance is expected to surpass 500 billion yuan, becoming a core engine for overall profit growth. By 2030, the return on equity (ROE) of tech finance will significantly exceed the bank’s average, with non-interest income surpassing 20%. In the longer term, tech finance will become Beijing Bank’s most distinctive brand label, with tech enterprise clients expected to contribute over half of the bank’s profits, driving a systematic increase in valuation and equipping the bank with core capabilities to navigate economic cycles.

Objectively, Beijing Bank’s tech finance strategy still faces industry-wide challenges, such as market risks from R&D failures of innovative enterprises, customer loss due to intensified competition, and ongoing digital transformation investment pressures—all long-term issues to address. However, it is undeniable that Dai Wei’s strategic choice aligns precisely with the national trend of technological innovation and hits the core direction of banking industry transformation. Amid the current industry-wide struggles with scale competition and narrowing spreads, Beijing Bank’s decision to abandon traditional scale battles and focus on the new track of tech finance demonstrates foresight and boldness.

Dai Wei has proven in one year that tech finance is not reckless gambling but a strategic layout based on industry trends, risk assessment, and long-term value. His combination of serving national strategies and deepening emerging fields has broken traditional banking thinking and reshaped Beijing Bank’s core competitiveness. For the entire banking industry, this approach offers valuable lessons: rather than competing fiercely on traditional tracks, it’s better to embrace new opportunities proactively and find breakthroughs in serving the real economy and supporting technological innovation. In the future, as the tech finance strategy continues to deepen, Beijing Bank is expected to completely shed its scale ranking constraints and achieve high-quality leapfrogging.