The corporations on our annual list of the world’s largest companies delivered a record $41 trillion in aggregate revenues.

G500-2023-Bank of China

A state-owned bank headquartered in Beijing, Bank of China is the world’s sixth-largest bank by revenue. It is also China’s oldest, most diversified, and most international bank, with hubs in over 60 countries and regions. As the largest Chinese bank in the U.S., Bank of China is also an industry leader in Sino-U.S. trade finance.<br />
<ul><br />
 	<li>Bank of China made $157 billion in revenue in 2022, a 3% increase from the prior year.</li><br />
 	<li>Bank of China established itself as a leader in the green bond market, issuing the first USD-denominated biodiversity-themed bond among global financial institutions.</li><br />
</ul>

Global 500

Aggregate sales hit $37.8 trillion last year—an increase of 19%, the highest annual growth rate in the list’s history.

G500 2022-42 Bank of China

The Bank of China is China’s oldest and most globalized bank, operating across 62 countries and regions. The majority state-owned bank saw $152.4 billion in 2021 revenue, for 13.7% year-over-year growth. Its net income jumped 12.3% from the year prior, to $34 billion, marking its fastest profit growth in nearly a decade. The Bank of China also reported a 1.33% ratio of nonperforming loans, a decrease from the year prior, though its nonperforming property loans increased sevenfold, to 34.7 billion yuan. BOC became the first Chinese bank to pledge to cease financing new coal-mining and coal-fired power projects outside China’s mainland, and it signed on to the UN’s Principles for Responsible Banking. BOC was also the official banking partner of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, making it the only bank to sponsor both the Summer and Winter Games. Though a mortgage payment crisis hit China in mid-2022, as of July, BOC maintained that its risk from payment delinquency remained manageable.

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Bank of China (BACHY): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Bank of China

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Bank of China (BACHY): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings | Fortune

[SOUND EFFECT] CLAY CHANDLER: Lucy Gazmararian is the co-chair of the blockchain committee of the Fintech Association of Hong Kong. And we're delighted to have her with us here today to talk about China's digital currency. Let's start by just talking about some of these acronyms that have been thrown around to describe whatever this thing is. I hear both Central Bank Digital Currency, CBDC, but also I hear this Digital Currency and Electronic Payment. What is the acronym of choice for this particular thing? And then tell us what it is. LUCY GAZMARARIAN: The DCEP is China's version of the CBDC, which is a central bank digital currency. So they have chosen to call their version of the CBDC a Digital Currency Electronic Payment. Actually, when it comes to central bank digital currencies, there is no set definition around the world. So many central banks are researching central bank digital currencies. In fact, the Bank for International Settlements says 80% of central banks around the world are researching this. So this is China's version of a central bank digital currency. CLAY CHANDLER: Tell us a little bit about what it is and what it would do, how it would work for an ordinary consumer or a company. LUCY GAZMARARIAN: It's essentially a digital currency. So the central bank, rather than minting physical cash and coins, they're going to "mint" a digital currency. And so really what we're talking about is an upgrade to cash, physical cash. And that is the use case, the first use case that China is going to have for their digital currency. It's going to be a retail central bank digital currency. So it's targeted at the retail sector primarily in China. And it's cash is getting an upgrade. CLAY CHANDLER: So would it be primarily targeted at consumers, or would it be more useful for more firms, or would be the main user? LUCY GAZMARARIAN: So when we say retail, retail actually encompasses individuals, it encompasses SMEs and corporates in China. So it's quite a wide-ranging category, actually. And the idea is that it's going to replace physical cash in China. Because the central bank is the one minting these digital tokens, this digital currency, it's legal tender. So it differs from other digital currencies people may be familiar with, such as Bitcoin or Libra Coin, other digital currencies. But this will be government-backed, legal tender in digital form. CLAY CHANDLER: China already has a quite advanced mobile and digital payment system, using Alipay or using WeChat Pay. How would this dovetail with those platforms? LUCY GAZMARARIAN: So importantly, the way that this new digital currency is going to get into the hands of the retail sector is via the existing financial services ecosystem. That is made up of the four state-owned banks, but it's also made up of non-banks, and that is Alibaba's Alipay and Tencent's WeChat Pay. So they are part of the distribution model. What the People's Bank of China, the PBoC, is not going to do, it's not going to hand over, or transfer, the digital tokens directly to retail. They're going to go via the banks and non-bank intermediaries, and then you download the digital wallet with these intermediaries, and that's the way you're going to be able to access new digital currency. So they're very integral to this new distribution model. CLAY CHANDLER: Why is that, I mean this is an extraordinary undertaking takes a lot of effort and manpower, obviously, to roll out. Why is it that the government sees that there's value in doing this? I mean, you mentioned efficiency, but are there other benefits that the government obtains from this? LUCY GAZMARARIAN: I mean, it's become as, China itself has said, it's a technological inevitability. It's not about whether they should embark on this undertaking, it's an absolute necessity. And it makes sense, because we look at our lives, increasingly we live our lives online. We have tech-enabled lives. And we're moving at breakneck speed towards a digital economy. And a digital economy, which includes tokenization, which is really leading in that new digital economy, needs digital money. It needs fiat money in a digital format. So otherwise, you're having the threat of Bitcoin or Libra Coin or other coins that have the technology that can integrate into the new digital economy. So it's an absolute necessity that China, as well as every other central bank, upgrades their currency. CLAY CHANDLER: Hmm, amazing. So all this data that will be available to central bank authorities, how will it be used, and then how will the central bank reassure people about the privacy of their data? LUCY GAZMARARIAN: So that's the really big question that's out there, and that's the big question that central banks really need to get their heads together and figure out how they are going to design this money. The data you are going to collect, there are two sides to it. On one side, the data that they're going to collect, given they are going to be able to gauge complete economic activity of a country in real time, and that data will be recorded on the blockchain-type network, distributed ledger, we don't know exactly. So the government will have access to all of that. On the one hand, it will just enable a central bank to be able to do their job more effectively. Because rather than having a lag in economic data, they're monitoring all the spending, the transactions, money supply, inflation implications, all in real time. With the ability to track all of that data that falls naturally into the lap of a central bank is all the other data. So every person's spending history, every person's bank account balance, tracking where they go in the world, because DCEP won't be available to Chinese as they do business in other countries and they visit other countries. So it's almost a sort of a way to track an individual as well. So there are big, alarming questions that need to be properly considered when it comes to privacy and anonymity. And the technology is there to enforce anonymity. So you can do, you can transact anonymously, there is the technology there. But it's a question of are they going to implement that? Is that something that they're going to build into their currency? And time will only tell, as different central banks come up with their versions of digital currency, as I say, there is no one size fits all. They're all going to be different, and likely to reflect the values and culture of their citizens. So we'll see if the different governments have a different approach to these critical questions. Which is the currency we're all going to end up using the most, what are we going to move towards? Or are all governments, we're just going to accept that all governments get to have this data, like we've kind of accepted with tech giants like Facebook? No one's really done anything about it. CLAY CHANDLER: That's fascinating, I mean, China's digital giants, particularly Tencent and Alibaba, are big players in other markets. India, of course, also Southeast Asia, whether as owners of tech companies in those markets, or whether as venture investors in some of the local players. Would it be easy for them to roll this out in local companies in Southeast Asia and India as well? LUCY GAZMARARIAN: I mean, absolutely, as much as it makes sense, there's someone else that needs to agree to that on the other side of the trade. So yes, they can, and it depends. At the moment, RMB is a tightly-controlled currency. So there's also that element. But if they do want to have currency flowing more freely outside of their own borders, they will have the technological capability to do that. And the other use cases brought up many times is the whole Belt and Road Initiative. There's so much trade happening in the Belt and Road, 60 plus cities, and there is not a universal currency. The US dollar is still the currency that needs to be transited, most huge transactions need to flow through the US dollar. So there is a case for the DCEP to become a universal payment instrument in emerging countries as part of the Belt and Road. And then there is talk that it could rise up as the world's reserve currency for emerging countries. CLAY CHANDLER: One complaint from China, that the US takes advantage of the fact that the dollar reigns supreme to try to enforce sanctions and other types of punishments on countries that go beyond just financial transactions and creating a market. Does this give China a way of buffering itself from those types of reprisals? LUCY GAZMARARIAN: Potentially. I think that we are so early in this journey. At the end of the day, user adoption of any currency is going to take time. We need all these currencies to be developed and launched. It's very difficult to say that a digital currency from China is going to be the new world's reserve currency, because the others have not launched yet. And let's take a look at how they are designed, what utility people see in them. I don't think the race is on. I don't think that if you move first, you get all the network effects. So really, we'll have to wait and see on that front. But we know that the central banks are also going to launch their own currency. And the US dollar has dominated global trade since the end of World War II. It is so integral to our world economy. I don't see that changing any time soon. And even if it is a case of a mismatch in technology innovation, i.e. China is streaming ahead and the US is lagging, the US now has a digital dollar project. They are very aware of what is necessary. They know in a digital economy, you need a digital currency. So it's a matter of time. CLAY CHANDLER: Well, this is fascinating. And it will be really interesting to see how rapidly this can be rolled out and will be accepted by consumers in the different markets. And it's extraordinary that China has been really at the vanguard of this, and thinking about it for so long, and now really coming into fruition. Lucy, thank you very much for sharing your thoughts and insights on what this new trend will look like, and we hope to welcome you again. LUCY GAZMARARIAN: Great thank you so much, Clay. 

Eastworld Spotlight: The inevitable rise of the digital yuan

International

This expert breaks down China's need for a digital currency.

The inevitable rise of the digital yuan

FinTech Association of Hong Kong’s Lucy Gazmararian discusses China’s central bank digital currency.

Watch: The inevitable rise of the digital yuan

[MUSIC PLAYING] CLAY CHANDLER: Jennifer Zhu Scott is the founder of Radian Partners, and has been a co-chair of our Fortune Global Forum in Guangzhou. And is an expert on all things related to China tech. But we're particularly interested today in talking a little bit about China's Central Bank digital currency. And what do we call this thing that China is working on? JENNIFER ZHU SCOTT: The Chinese digital currency, the Central Bank backed currency, is essentially a digital form of existing sovereign currency, which is RMB. The Central Bank has been working on this for a long time. And China has already long become the largest cashless economy in the world for quite a few years now. When we are using WeChat pay or Alipay, that's still directly associated to our bank account or directly associated to our debit cards or credit cards. CLAY CHANDLER: So it would be similar to WeChat pay and Alipay, except that it would be operated by the Central Bank? Is that correct? JENNIFER ZHU SCOTT: For individual users on the front end, I would expect that the difference for them would be very few, right? They will still scan a QR code, or go to a shopping mall. Their action of the process of the payment would still be quite similar. But the difference is the back end-- the back end-- is the ledger controlled by basically two companies linked to the existing financial system, or is it a ledger controlled by Central Bank? CLAY CHANDLER: When people think about digital currencies, perhaps in the United States at least, a lot of people what comes to mind is Libra, the proposal that Facebook has put forward. How would what China is discussing be similar or different from Libra? JENNIFER ZHU SCOTT: Libra is fundamentally different from previous digital currencies. Where PBOC's digital currency is an extension of a fiat currency coming from a central bank. Whereas Libra is coming from a private corporation, and trying to promote this international cross-border payment system. CLAY CHANDLER: Help us understand a little bit about the timing for some of these discussions-- why the PBOC might be so interested in rolling this out now? JENNIFER ZHU SCOTT: There are two major factors-- one is domestic and one is international. We still have about 60 million people living under poverty in China, and a lot of them are really spread out in the very rural areas in China. It's not because the central government doesn't have money to send to the local government, but the layers of the bureaucracy, inefficiency, and corruption really became a cost and a barrier for the central government to do this very effectively. So if the Central Bank starts to have digital currency, then in theory, all the central government need to do is to give every single family a phone. And that has a built in digital wallet in it. And with that, not only you can you directly send aid from Beijing to all of the rural area families in China. And you can also track how much of their money is actually used to buy fertilizers or agriculture needs or education? And be able to not only just elevate that the last batch of people in China living under poverty efficiently, but also with intelligence. Understand their behavior, and what they actually need. China, as it's expanding its global role, especially in developing countries, and relying on the resources and relying on those countries. And China, with a lot of those countries, even with bilateral trade, they still rely on US dollars, right? So we've seen how much the US dollar trade became-- the US government's sanction has been weaponized. And with this kind of weaponization, even without a trade war, even without our own political climate, a sensible question to ask is how much I am exposing my trade in this political risk, when this bilateral trade doesn't actually involve the US? So a sensible thing for China to do is to find a way to trade without the US dollar. So if Central Bank can issue a digital currency, then you could even write it into the code which part of the money can go outside and become part of the aid or loans going to build in rural countries. And they can in return use that infrastructure related to projects with China. And in fact, that kind of displaces the US dollar in those bilateral spaces between China and those countries. CLAY CHANDLER: Digital currencies is currently being rolled out, as of a month ago, in four or five Chinese cities, right? JENNIFER ZHU SCOTT: Correct. CLAY CHANDLER: What do we know about those cities so far? JENNIFER ZHU SCOTT: The short answer is not much. I think the trial process has been somewhat separative. And we don't really know what's the result in funding. We're probably quite close to seeing a launch of digital currency in China. But I do think there are some hesitations and concerns within China. As we all know, the Chinese banking system is not very well established. There are a lot of problems with the existing banking system. So when Central Bank issues digital currency, in theory small businesses and individuals will be able to directly have an account with Central Bank. And what will leave all of the commercial banks and all the retail banks, especially local banks, too. And would that bring a total overhaul of the existing banking system? It's very hard to-- it's a very difficult task to assess, to carry out. CLAY CHANDLER: So the way to think about this is that right now they're still in the trial phase, and they're still deciding whether-- when to formally launch it nationwide. JENNIFER ZHU SCOTT: I bet it's not very long from now. I think-- yeah, we're probably talking about months. No more than one or two years. Because the infrastructure is already there. The relationship between Tencent and Alibaba probably will become facilitators. And I would not be surprised if there are already agreements in place between Alibaba and Tencent between Central Bank. CLAY CHANDLER: I just want to ask about the privacy issues associated with creating a digital currency in China. I mean, this obviously has been a concern for Libra discussions as well. JENNIFER ZHU SCOTT: We must all recognize that a society is bigger than individual existence. Of course, as an individual I prefer my privacy is protected and I prefer my personal freedom. But when the public health, and from a public security issue, and the entire society is threatened by the same disease, I think every individual will have to deal with the trade off. CLAY CHANDLER: Wow. Fascinating. Jennifer, always great to talk with you about the latest trends on China's technologies. We learned a lot. Thanks very much for your time. JENNIFER ZHU SCOTT: Thank you very much for having me. 

Eastworld Spotlight: Unpacking China’s central bank digital currency

Then innovation it brings, and the challenges it faces.

Unpacking China’s central bank digital currency

Radian Partners' Jennifer Zhu Scott discusses the CBDC's innovations and challenges.

Watch: Unpacking China’s central bank digital currency

Apple stock prices down as part of a broader slump in the tech industry. The reason China. Erin has Apple hit its peak? The short answer is no Apple has not hit its peak. It's really easy to ask that question of Apple because they are the number one tech company in the world and the most profitable tech company in the world. So everybody wants to see them hit a stumbling block but I don't think one little blip is really enough to suddenly claim, oh Apple's in trouble. Well look, let's talk about China. So CEO Tim Cook said this is the future. This is the future of our profits, of our revenue, of Of our growth right. ANd what we're seeing already sis that there is a slowdown there is saturation in the phone market. And this is, you know the world's largest phone market I think. And apple is already the number one or number two depending on the quarter, phone maker, so how many more sales could it have left in that market? You got to wonder can it reach the heights that it has before .>> Right, well okay so Apple is going to continue to grow because they make such great profit margins on it's phones- They're using all of that money to invest in future growth. They know that smart phones will obviously become penetrated. People do always have to replace their phones, but Apple's now spending money on things like Apple TV. They are just getting going on the Apple watch. People seem to be pretty excited about it still. And they have things that are only rumored like the self- driving car and smart cars. Sure, but there's one thing here, potential. Not reality yet and the problem is China's starting to slow down already. And if we're talking about growth here. We're not talking about revenue, we're talking about the real deal. You know, you've got to hope that those other products are going to come through. And then moreover, the competition's pretty stiff in all of them. If you look at Apple TV, it's not even number one or number two. I think it's something like Google's Chromecast and Amazon's Fire. And we can't forget Roku. Then you go to the car. Totally nascent market, and Microsoft and Google have already been operating there for a while. And then you've got the watch, right, Samsung and Motorola certainly churning those things out. So the way I see it. You know, if there's an up to be had, Apple's going down first. Well no. The difference though, between those companies that you named and Apple is that they don't have the brand that Apple has and that people are really willing to pay A ridiculous price for these Apple branded products because of, you know, how valuable that brand is and how much it means to them. Those other companies don't have that. So whatever market Apple moves into, they're always going to have these really great margins. That's a fair point. For one show that hasn't yet hit its peak, come to fortune. com for more Tech Debate.

With the tech giant's stock stalling after a rough week in China, Fortune's Andrew Nusca and Erin Griffith debate whether Apple's best days are behind it.

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