Two Chinese joint-stock banks have taken a conspicuous step in marrying finance and commercial space. On 16 January, China Merchants Bank launched a narrowband IoT satellite nicknamed "Zhaoyin Jinkui" and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank put its "Puyin Shuzhi" satellite into low Earth orbit. Both craft join the Tianqi (Tiānqǐ) constellation, a commercial low‑orbit network developed and operated by Beijing Guodian Gaoke, whose first phase comprises 38 small satellites.
The banks are explicit about why they invested in space hardware: to sharpen credit risk controls and to create operational resilience. Satellite remote‑sensing and IoT links can monitor construction progress, check the physical condition of mortgaged property and provide real‑time data on loan projects across wide geographic areas. China Merchants Bank says its in‑house monitoring system, fed by high‑resolution imagery, now achieves construction‑progress accuracy above 95%, cutting the need for slow, costly manual inspections.
The launches also reflect a broader industry trend. Ping An Bank launched two IoT satellites in 2020 and 2022; with Pudong and China Merchants now in orbit, three major joint‑stock banks have operational satellites. Banks frame these constellations not only as risk‑management tools but as platforms for product innovation: rapid recovery of communications after natural disasters, more precise pricing of mortgage and supply‑chain finance, and new data services offered to public agencies such as housing and development authorities.
From a technical perspective, the new satellites add density and capability to the Tianqi network. Combining narrowband IoT links with earlier broadband nodes shortens revisit times, increases concurrent terminal capacity and raises total data throughput. Those improvements translate into more frequent monitoring sweeps and greater capacity to serve large numbers of thin‑data endpoints — construction sites, logistics fleets and remote collateral.
The move has economic and governance implications. Falling launch and build costs in commercial space make satellite access a realistic strategic asset for sophisticated lenders; owning or leasing dedicated capacity can confer competitive advantage in pricing, monitoring and emergency services. At the same time the approach concentrates new kinds of data in the hands of banks and private satellite operators, raising questions about data governance, privacy, regulatory oversight and vendor dependence.
Practical limits remain. Orbital imaging and IoT telemetry do not replace on‑the‑ground judgment: image interpretation, timeliness of revisit windows, weather and urban canyons all constrain what satellites can reliably detect. Cybersecurity, supply‑chain concentration in a handful of launch and design firms, and the political sensitivities of a rapidly growing domestic satellite sector will shape how broadly and how fast similar capabilities diffuse beyond large state‑linked and well‑capitalised banks.