Chinanews, Beijing, Feb. 11 –On December 27, 2006, two companies in Pingyao County, Shanxi Province, were chosen by the People's Bank of China as trial banks to do small sum credit loan business.

 

A month before the arrival of the Spring Festival, the three children of Li Guangming, a farmer living in Pingyao's Duancun Town went back home.

 

The China Business News reported that even now, Li Guangming still remembered the hard days that the family had experienced in August, last year. At that time, all of his three children were enrolled by colleges. However, he couldn't afford to pay the college tuition and fees for them. When he was just about to sell his only pharmacy to pay their tuition and fees, someone helped him to get a 15,000-yuan loan from the Rishenglong Small Sum Credit Loan Company in Pingyao County.

 

Now his three children all go to college, while his small pharmacy can make a profit of 10,000-20,000 yuan this year.

 

Apart from Rishenglong, another company, Jinyuantai, in Pingyao, also operates by giving small sum credit loans to farmers like Li Guangming.

 

In January, 2007, the business reports from the two banks show that Rishenglong and Jinyuantai each made a profit of 1.14 million yuan and 1.65 million yuan, respectively.

 

The business managers of the two banks are both optimistic about their banks' prospect.

 

By 2007, the balance of loans in the bank could reach 35 million yuan and they could make 5 million yuan from interest income, said Liu Weihui, Rishenglong's general manager.

 

For Jinyuantai, the balance of loans in their bank could reach at least 30 million yuan, and the interest income for their bank could reach 3 million yuan, according to Han Shigong, the bank's board director.

 

After one year's trial run, the two banks said they would devote more efforts to improving their management system.