SOURCE / ECONOMY
China's social credit system covers 1.1 billion people by end 2020
Published: Jan 26, 2021 12:45 PM

A staff member receives a credit repair application filed by an enterprise representative at a tax bureau service center in Taijiang District, Fuzhou, southeast China's Fujian Province, July 21, 2020. The Fujian provincial taxation authority has introduced more active and dynamic credit management for taxpayers in 2020. Under the new mechanism, market players are encouraged to submit applications and get some of their negative tax payment credit records fixed. With their credits repaired, the enterprises involved could expect smoother handling of tax matters in the future. Statistics show that over 18,000 enterprises have applied for such credit repair and had their credit upgraded. (Xinhua/Song Weiwei)


China has expanded its social credit system to cover 1.1 billion individuals and over 60 million enterprises and organizations as of end 2020, including 36 million small and micro enterprises and 11 million individual businesses, according to the People's Bank of China (PBOC).

In May 2020, the second-generation credit information system was officially put into operation, and has since improved the data collection, service, system operation performance and security management level. Users can check their credit ratings through website query and bank apps.

Since 2020, the credit reference center of the PBOC has actively lowered its credit inquiry fee to reduce the financing cost of enterprise and audit costs of financial institutions.

From March 1 to December 31, 2020 a total of 950 million yuan ($146 million) worth of inquiry fees have been reduced, benefiting 3,488 financial institutes.

China plans to build the world's largest social credit system by 2020 to record the credit of all individuals, enterprises and government agencies in four areas - administrative affairs, commercial activities, social behavior, and the judicial system, according to an outline issued by the State Council in 2014.