Zhu Guang, senior vice-president of Baidu， makes a speech on the 2nd China Fintech Conference Agenda held in Beijing on Sept 17, 2017.[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Zhu Guang, senior vice-president of Baidu, said that Baidu Finance, since the end of 2015 when it was set up, has granted nearly 5-billion-yuan loans to 320,000 youngsters to help them get vocational training. They had failed in China's college entrance examinations and had no diplomas or degrees but showed enthusiasm for learning, based on their past records of using Baidu to search for more knowledge or skills via Baidu Tieba, or Baidu Knows.

"Now, the design, production, control, allocation and sales of a financial product have become a supply chain and a purely market-oriented process," said Zhu.