In addition to that, the number of loan officers is almost half of the total staff, due to the labor-intensive nature of SME lending business.
By the end of December 2011, TLB had eight branches, two village and town banks and 50 sub-branches which are mainly spread out around the Yangtze River Delta region.
[citation needed] It was founded in 1993[1] with a registered capital of RMB 1 million and 7 staff, positioning itself at the very beginning as the small-and-micro-enterprise(SME) financing service provider and being upgraded from credit union to commercial bank in 2006, is one of few complete private holding city commercial banks in China.
Although the credit union was performing adequately in the first half decade since its birth, it was struggling in the fiercely competitive Chinese market.
as regards SME’s lack of collaterals required by bigger banks, TLB serves them special loans secured only through guarantors to attract more clients.