Distinguished investors, analysts, friends from the press, good afternoon. Welcome to BOC 2024 interim results release. I'm George Wen, the BOC Board Secretary. Today, I and Madame Yu Ke, BOC Spokesperson, will co-chair this session, and this release will also be live-streamed on the internet, so, greetings to friends joining us online. First of all, I would like to introduce the BOC leaders present today. They are Chairman Ge Haijiao, Executive Director and Vice President Lin Jingzhen, Vice President Liu Jin, Vice President Zhang Xiaodong, Vice President Zhao Cai, Chief Risk Officer Liu Jiandong. Also, a representative of our independent director, Madame Liu Xiaolei, joins us online. The 2024 interim results have been released on August twenty-ninth. The slides can be downloaded at the official website of the BOC, or can be viewed on the live streaming page.
All the financial statistics are compiled based on the IFRS, otherwise, unless otherwise specified. We have two sections today, the results announcement and the Q&A. First of all, I would like to invite Chairman Ge Haijiao to introduce to you the interim results of the bank.
Dear investors, analysts, friends from the press, good afternoon. Welcome to the interim results release of BOC for 2024 . Over the years, you have paid a lot of attention, support, and assistance to the operation and development of the BOC. Here, on behalf of the bank, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to you. Now, I would like to first introduce to you the operating performance in the first half of 2024 and the outlook for the future.
Also, after that, together with the other management, I would like to point 92 billion yuan. The after-tax profit, 126.35 billion yuan. NIM stood at one point four four percent, which is the same as the first quarter of this year. The non-interest income increased by 6.36 percent year-on-year, and the cost-to-income ratio is down by zero point three two percentage points year-on-year. Second, the assets and liabilities continue to grow steadily. Asset scale reached thirty-three point nine one trillion yuan, and the liabilities, thirty-one point one three trillion yuan, up by 4.5 percent and four point nine percent respectively over last year's end. Third, customer base continued to be consolidated.
All corporate customers increased by 6.8% compared with the last year's end, and the all personal customers increased by 1.19%, and the group's private banking customers increased by 6.65%. Fourth, risk resilience capabilities increased. NPL ratio stood at 1.24%, 0.03 percentage points down compared with the end of last year. The provision coverage ratio stood at 201.96%, or 10.03 percentage points higher compared with the last year's end. The capital adequacy ratio stood at 18.91%, 1.17 percentage points higher than last year's end. Also, the first half of the year, the stock prices in A and H markets also performed well, which has delivered tangible results for the shareholders.
In order to implement the new requirement of the government, and to answer the shareholders' need for cash dividends, we will increase the interim dividend for the year. Considering the operation results, financial conditions, and future development, and approved by the board of directors, we suggest that we will pay out the interim common stock dividend for twenty twenty-four at CNY 1.208 per 10 shares, and it will be submitted for shareholders' approval. In the first half of the year, BOC focused on our main businesses and taking our responsibilities. We focused on five main areas to serve the overall strategy of national development, and have boosted the economic recovery, and our main business have improved a lot. First, we will be a practitioner in implementing the CPC Central Committee's decisions, and give them also support for the five main areas.
The BOC consistently understood the essence of high quality development, improved the financial supply, and also the quality and efficiency of services. Fintech have continued to improve, and we have established Fintech center in the head office and branches to quickly respond to the customers' and markets' needs. We provided CNY 1.71 trillion of credit support for 38,000 high-tech companies, and providing CNY 650 billion of comprehensive services. For green finance, the domestic green credit balance stood at CNY 3.67 trillion, up by 18%. The green financial product system continued to be enriched, and the scale of underwriting the green bonds remained the number one in the market. The operation of the head office and many other offices have remained carbon neutral, and credit financial services become even better.
Our credit or loan balance exceeded CNY 2 trillion, up by 18.94%, and the number of customers exceeded 1.3 million, up by 21.67%. In terms of the customer numbers and coverage rate for special enterprises, we are market leader. We also continue to improve the pension finance. We continue to improve the service level, both online and in the outlet to the elderly people. The amount of fiduciary pension funds exceeded 232.3 billion, up by 10.71%. The number of personal account of enterprise annuities exceeded 4.37 million, up by 6%. The digital finance or digital finance continued to empower transformed development.
The Oasis Project has gone live, and the data platform has covered over 80% of the institutions in the group. We have improved the number of monthly active users of mobile banking by 9.98%, and the corporate online clients increased by 9.96% year-on-year. Second, to be a mainstay for serving the real economy and boost the recovery of the economy. In the first half of the year, domestic RMB loans increased by CNY 1.21 trillion, with better growth and structure. We have supported the growth of effective investment, and the medium- to long-term loans of the manufacturing sector increased by 13.82%, and the balance loans for strategic emerging industries increased by 15.37%, and the agriculture-related loans CNY 2.28 trillion.
We have boosted domestic consumption, and the personal non-housing consumption loans balance increased by 24.9%. We have supported the trading of consumer products. We have also supported the private economy and developed the work plans for supporting private business to go global, and the balance of loans for private companies increased by CNY 348 billion, up by 9.35%. We've also helped to build a new pattern for the real estate sector. We have supported the coordinated mechanism for urban real estate financing to meet the reasonable financing need of the real estate developers, and our market share of corporate mortgage business have increased, so we should be a pioneer of the dual circulation development pattern and leverage our globalized and integrated operation advantages.
The pre-tax profits of the overseas commercial banks exceeded CNY 5 billion for the first half of the year, up by 11%, and the contribution to the group reached, increased to 23.95%. And we consolidated our advantage in overseas settlement, and the international settlement exceeded $1.8 trillion, and the number of customers increased by 13.6%. We've seized the opportunities of international trade growth, and the overall trade volume of overseas e-commerce increased by 59% year-on-year. We further expanded our advantage in cross-border RMB business, and the Serbia RMB clearing bank has officially started operation, and we have implemented the first RMB loans to Middle Eastern companies. And the carrying amount of cross-border RMB increased by 93.97%, and the amount of panda bonds underwriting exceeded CNY 28.5 billion.
We've supported the companies to go in and to go out. We have provided credit for over 1,100 projects along the Belt and Road, involving $341 billion, and the number of merchants receiving overseas cards increased by 127%. We've also increased the coordination mechanism, and the core business indicators of several comprehensive operation companies have improved, and the daily sale of asset management products exceeded CNY 1.3 trillion. Fourth, we will be a ballast stone for maintaining financial stability and effectively prevent financial risks. We will build a comprehensive risk management system, improve the risk inspection and judgment system, and also the close with management of the emergency case management.
We will take a case-by-case approach in improving the risk management of overseas institutions and the comprehensive operation companies to strengthen the see-through management of the group and to prevent the cross-regional, cross-market, and cross-border spread of the risks, and to respond to the volatility of global financial markets will also increase the prevention of conventional and non-conventional risks, and be more proactive in preventing the risks in real estate and the local debt. We have also effectively improved our risk offset capabilities. Number five, we'll be a practitioner in building strong and the large state-owned financial institutions to improve efficiency of the group. We have implemented the central government's requirement, and have further improved our performance evaluation mechanism to better serve the national strategy and achieve high-quality development.
We have consistently improved the corporate governance mechanism, and reviewed the articles of association, the authorization mechanism, the rules of procedures for the special committees of the board, and the strategic planning of the group, and have developed a twelve-point action plan for implementing the spirit of the central government's financial work meeting. We've also improved the high-level design for globalized management, and promoted the one-point contact global response mechanism to improve our global layout mechanism and international competitiveness. Looking into the future, the third plenum have set out the new blueprint for reform and opening up as China's economy picks up. And the new momentum and advantages continue to be cultivated, and the high-quality development takes root, and the bank faces the rare opportunity of accelerated transformation and development.
We'll go all out in promoting the high-quality development of social and economic development, and focus on five key areas to promote and improve the financial supply structure, and to promote the profound transformation of development philosophies and business patterns, to build new momentums and new advantages. We will better boost domestic demand and coordinated regional development, and boost the development of the private economy. We will also contribute to high-level opening up, and to build a high-level opening up economic new system, and support the international trade and BRI initiative to promote the internationalization of RMB to meet the diversified needs of the customers for comprehensive financial services, improve our global competitiveness. We will also prevent systematic risks and be more forward-looking to have systematic implementation of risk measures.
We should be more proactive in preventing and foreseeing the risks, more targeted in risk control, and have see-through integrated management, so as to build an effective risk prevention net, and to prevent and mitigate risks in key areas. We will overcome difficulties and promote innovation and reform. We'll focus on customer-centric product service system, improve our products to be more diversified, accessible, and inclusive. We will also accelerate the digital transformation, strengthen high-tech empowerment to build a governance structure that is suited to our global and comprehensive management, and this year is the seventy-fifth anniversary of the establishment of the PRC, and also a critical year for achieving the fourteenth Five-Year Plan.
BOC will continue to work hard to deepen reform and take our responsibilities to accomplish all the tasks, so as to make greater contribution in serving Chinese-style modernization, to build a strong financial power, and to boost high-quality development and make greater contribution to the society, the shareholder, and the country. Thank you.
Thank you, Chairman. Now let's enter into the QA session. In order to have more friends to get the opportunity to ask questions, please just ask one questions once, and please identify yourselves before asking questions. Now, investors and analysts, the floor is yours. Those who are online, please raise up your hands if you want to ask questions. Shannon, please.
Thank you very much for the opportunity. I'm from the China Securities, I'm Ma Kunpeng. I'd like to have a question, a broad question. We've seen that over the past one years, the environment is very complex. F or banking industries, there are many uncertainties, and we've seen that BOC, in the past one year, have mobilized your motivation, and the results have been achieved to pull through the difficulties and ability to go through the cycles, and that is reflected on the results. I have a question for Chairman Ge. Starting from now, looking to the future, how do we see the future business environment, as well as the business strategies and the layouts, deployments to have specific considerations? Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for the question. This is a very good question, actually. The economic environment in China is recovering. For a large financial institution as BOC and G-SIB, my personal understanding is that we are having more opportunities than challenges. For any challenges or risks for us, they are new challenges. There are aspects, first, in terms of the national policy of China, since in the third plenum of the twentieth CPC Central Committee of China, there are systematic layouts, and the policy dividends will be unleashed, and that will bring impetus to the high-quality development of the economy and the society.
In terms of the industrial development, BOC is faced with positive factors and externalities, in particular, with the high-level opening up of China, as well as a new round of technology and scientific innovation and development that will bring opportunities to BOC, be it for overseas as well as in domestic China. For example, the vast development of high-quality new productive forces, that will be good for our comprehensive business operation, and we can to seize the opportunities in the changes. In terms of the financial regulations, since the central financial work and the regulation are more fledged and the efficiency has been improved, that has provided strong support and regulatory environment for stable development for the banking industry itself. Now, it is restructuring and for us to do our own job well and improve our quality.
The challenges of the market brought us the impetus for us to improve the efficiency and quality of ourselves and optimize our business strategies to seize the opportunities brought by the changes in the market, to achieve and the stable and sound development of our businesses as well as our restructuring. Looking forward, BOC will learn for the, financial chapter of the Xi Jinping thought on economic development, in particular, the political philosophy and people-oriented of the finance. In particular, combining with the policy strategies of, our country, as well as in the development of the financial sector, to seek our own high quality development road. To be more specific, while cultivating the new quality productive forces. F or BOC, we have a lot explorations on this part, in particular, the five key, aspects of financial sector, in particular, Fintech.
Be it our management team, we pay a full attention to this part. We'll provide the high quality development of the Fintech and combine with the life cycle of the industries, and provide financial service to the technology sector, while at the same time actively participate in the international rule-making or standard-making to provide a service and to the different business entities. W e'll also combine the five key priorities of the financial development and play a role in these five key priorities. S econd, promote the comprehensive reform. How can we provide more diversified financial products and increase its diversity and accessibility of financial products?
In particular, providing service to the new product for us, as well as in the optimizing our group governance framework, and provide more quality products and to meet the changing demands of our customers. We need to be ready for that and make some preparations, and to create more values and sustainable development, and also operate and upgrade some of our governance work. Third, we need to improve our competitiveness to ensure the financial revenues indicators' sustainability. We can see the results in the first half of this year. We control the risks. Based on that, we maintain the stable financial performance. We'll optimize our business structures. For example, leverage our advantages and improve our revenues for financial performance, while at the same time, we'll control the cost, control the increase of the fees and expenses.
Fourth, we'll invest more resources to consolidate our international operations, as well as our advantages in our global businesses. CPC Central Committee promote the build strong financial country. N ow we have the advantages and the capacity to, in the future, to play a bigger part in this process, in particular, support the BRI cooperation, as well, high quality bringing and a high quality going out. W e provide financial support to those very pragmatic projects in overseas cooperation, while at the same time, we expand our cross-border business servicing ability and to provide immediate and fast response to customers' demands. F ifth, we will shore up our defense line of the risks.
We will continue to improve our risk management mechanism, in particular, increase our risk screening and management of the conventional and unconventional risks, and to break down the risk management to the different layers and the levels of the institutions within group, be it domestically and overseas operations and businesses. We will maintain close interactions with the regulators to promote the risk mitigation in key areas, improve our coordination in the risk mitigation, provide services to the three major projects, in particular, ensuring delivery of pre-sold housing units. We will also build analysis and research at the industry and increase our risk mitigation, prevention of risk, counter risk, as well as ensure AML compliance to ensure the stable and a safe and secure operation of BOC, build BOC as a strong and a resilient state-owned bank. Thank you very much, Chairman Ge.
Next question, please.
Thank you. Shen Juan from Huatai Securities, and congratulations, management. Against the difficult market environment, BOC achieved good performance in terms of the financial indicators. I have a question about credit. We've seen that in the first half of the year, the credit extension, it was good. I'd like to ask a question about in the geographical features, structures of the credit granting, as well as in the forecast for the next half of this year against the backdrop of the market environment, as well as in policies. W hat are our forecasts or outlook or plan for in terms of a credit extension in the second half of this year?
Thank you very much for the question. I'd like to give the floor to Vice President Lin Jingzhen to take this question.
Thank you for the question. Since the beginning of this year, BOC implemented the policies and strategies of the government of China, and implemented a series of the guidelines in the conferences, and also meet the regulators' requirements, pay attention to the stable growth of credit granting, as well as optimizing of the structures of our credit products to provide service to the real economy. As at the end of June this year, BOC's domestic RMB loan increased by CNY 1.2 trillion, compared of the beginning of this year, an increase of 7.3%. Corporate credit achieved stable growth. Domestic corporate loan increased by CNY 1.06 trillion or 9.98%. Private credit contribution has been increased.
Domestic RMB personal loan increased by RMB 143.9 billion or 2.47%, so the volume and the speed are better than the same period of the last year. Inclusive Finance, credit finance, Green Finance, finance for the Strategic Emerging Industries, as well as other key areas, has been higher than the average growth rate of the loans. The structure of the credit products has been increased. In terms of private credit, we have implemented the policies to expand domestic demand.
Non-housing consumption loan has been increased by more than 70% year-on-year, and we also support the consumption goods trade-in, as we work with relevant local governments to provide support and to the new energy vehicles, smart housing appliances, as well as green home appliances to improve the quality of the consumption. In terms of corporate credit granting, in terms of the industries, we provide credit supplies to the manufacturing, construction, transportation, warehousing, as well as post, and energy, thermal power, gas and water. Those are the top five industries we provide credit granting to, and also provide support to the wholesale and retail sector.
In terms of the geographical distribution, the key areas show faster growth, including the Hebei, Tianjin, and Beijing area, and Hong Kong, Macao and Guangdong area, Yangtze River Delta area. The contribution has been increased compared with the year beginning. Looking forward, BOC will continue to provide a strong support to the real economy. To ensure the scale as well as the combined supply to the demand of the customers, we'll focus more on the structural optimization, increase efficiency and quality. In terms of private credit granting, we will continue to enhance the credit granting in the real estate sector to support the demand for rental amount and replace the amount of housing sector.
We'll also provide service to the consumer goods trade-in and increase the consumption loan installment of automobile purchasing, as well as other products. We'll also continue to expand our customers and acquire more customers, and also we'll provide the key scenarios of our customers as well. Non-housing consumption loans will be increased, and the coverage will be expanded. We will also optimize our credit structure and promote the key areas, loan granting or credit granting. We'll provide more services to the five key priorities, including inclusive and green finance, digital finance, and pension finance. We'll improve our group's commercial banking comprehensive service and provide deposit, loan, equity, bond, foreign exchange, as well as other series of comprehensive and package service, and improve the quality of our financial supply.
In terms of regions or areas, Yangtze River Delta, the big Bay Area, Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei area, the three strategic areas, credit growth is strong and they are the key areas of contributing to our credits increasing. W e will seriously promote the western area development to build a new landscape of our development, as well as in the revitalization of Northeast China. We'll optimize the resources allocation in key areas and provide our contribution to the credit granting to key areas. Thank you very much.
Thank you, President Ling. Next question.
Thank you for the opportunity. I'm Yan Meizhi from UBS. My question is about operating income. We can see that, BOC outperforms the peers in terms of operating income, and has achieved a positive growth in Q2. My question is: could you help us analyze BOC's performance in terms of interest income and non-interest income? W hat's your outlook for the future? Thank you.
Thank you. President Liu Jin will give you an answer.
Thank you for your question. Just as you said, in the first half of 2024, our bank has achieved an operating income of CNY 317.9 billion, which is relatively stable compared with the same period of the last year. In terms of net interest income, in the first half of the year, it was CNY 226.7 billion, which has fallen year on year. Apart from the impact of asset liability scale, there was also an impact from the prices. Since beginning of this year, to better serve the real economy, the banking sector have taken the initiative to deliver more benefits to the real economy, and the different industries have very different credit demands, and the impact of the repricing of assets and liabilities continue to be felt.
Also, the ECB and the Switzerland have started to cut the rates, and the Federal Reserve is expected to cut rates since starting from September. W e need to do a better job in the proactive management of foreign currency-denominated assets and liabilities. F or us, we need to actively respond to market changes, strengthen the coordinate management of quantity and rate of deposits and loans. In the first half of the year, the group's NIM stood at 1.44%, which is leveled off compared with the Q1 last year, and the downward trend has slowed. As for the future, BOC will continue to leverage our advantage in our business structure and institutionally out, so as to respond to the downward pressure of the NIM and to be more proactive in NIM management.
In terms of the RMB business, we will continue to optimize the asset structure to give more support for new quality productive forces, the five main areas and other key areas. We will provide more credit support for the personal mortgage loans, and so that personal loans will make more contribution to the loan increment. Second, we'll continue to consolidate our fundamental businesses, and to stabilize and increase the deposits through agency, salary payment and cash management, and to have more sources of low-cost funds. Also, we'll have more refined management of liabilities. Also, we will improve the quality of services, better learn about customers' needs to improve the quality of services. In terms of the foreign currency business, we will seize the strategic market opportunities offered by the internationalization of RMB, and to help companies go out and introducing advanced companies.
We will also accelerate the transition of light asset businesses overseas, and to approach this through overseas custodian services and cross-border agency salary payment. F ourth, we will closely follow the dynamics of the monetary policies of key economies to be more forward-looking and to have more reasonable layout or arrangement of the term and pacing of the market financing. In terms of the non-interest income, in the first half of the year, we have proactively seized the market opportunities and overcome negative impacts, achieved 91.1 billion CNY of non-interest income, up by 6.36%. T his is our advantage, that non-interest income account for a large proportion of our operating income. I t accounted for 28.68%, improving by 1.87%.
Specifically, first, our bank has actively responded to the initiative of the industry associations, and have proactively cut some of the fees to deliver benefits to the real economy. Second, we have been committed to customer-centric philosophy to focus on customers' financial needs, improve our comprehensive service capabilities, and expand the customer base, so that the payment and settlement fees have steadily increased. The internet payment fees increased by 4.7% year on year, and the domestic corporate settlement fees increased by 5.87%. International settlement fees grew by 9.62% year-on-year. Third, we have leveraged our global advantage and integrated operation features to seize market opportunities, and to earn more through the financial investment and the wealth and insurance services.
Looking into the future, we will seize the opportunity of domestic economic pickup, and actively support the real economy, effectively meet customers' needs, leverage our own advantages to promote the non-interest income business. First, we will expand new businesses and tap into potential of old businesses, so as to increase the number of customers and the amount of income. Second, we will provide better comprehensive financial services to create more customers, to create more values for the customers. Third, we will follow the policy guide of boosting domestic demand and consumption to be more targeted in reaching customers. Fourth, we will closely follow the global economic and financial market development to strengthen our trend analysis, and to dynamically optimize the investment strategy and portfolio to seize opportunities in market volatilities. Thank you.
A lot of friends, including H share investors and analysts, cannot join us online and are joining us online. W e would like to give an opportunity to the analysts online. P lease identify yourself first before raising your questions.
Thank you for giving me this opportunity. I'm Xu Yan from Morgan Stanley. My question is about asset quality. Now, the market pays close attention to the asset quality of real estate and retail-related loans. W hat's the asset quality of? The credit risks and have achieved good results in asset quality management. You have mentioned the real estate and the retail loans. I n the first half of this year, so as the policy to support the real estate sector takes effect, the external financing environment for developers have improved.
Also, the BOC have strengthened risk management and improved the efficiency of collection and mitigation. B y the end of June, the NPL balance was CNY 47 billion, down by CNY 1 billion, and the NPL ratio was 4.94%, down by 0.57 percentage point. O verall, the risks in the real estate sector for our bank is under control. As the next steps, we will continue to implement the work related to the guarantee of house delivery and to support the coordination mechanism. B ased on market-oriented and law-based principles, we will give out loans whenever it is necessary, and we will also encourage local SOEs to acquire existing commodity housing and to use it for subsidized housing. We will also implement the three big projects and the house leasing projects.
Also, we will strengthen the monetary disposal of the developers and to prevent and mitigate the real estate-related risks through various means. Another thing you have mentioned is the retail loans. In the first half of the year, BOC continued to be more forward-looking and proactive in risk management. W e have strengthened the access and approval management of the clients, and be more granular in the post-loan management. So we have focused on the prevention of potential risks for overdue loans, and by the end of June, the personal mortgage loans NPL was 0.55%, which is 0.07 percentage point higher than the end of last year, which is consistent with the overall real estate market.
For the domestic commercial bank and non-housing consumer loans, NPL ratio is 1.04%, 0.19 percentage point compared with the end of last year. The credit card NPL ratio was down by 0.17 percentage point. As the next steps, we'll continue to strengthen the management of personal business-related risks and to mitigate the NPLs. Looking into the future, the real estate sector, personal and micro loans and overseas real estate will be the focus areas. We'll continue to balance development and security, do a better job in risk management and be a ballast stone in maintaining financial stability.
First, we will address problems in development and integrate into the national development strategy, focus on the five main financial areas, optimize the financial supply structure to achieve high quality development and high level security, and achieve benign interaction between the two. We will adopt a systematic approach and observe the bottom line of security. We will implement the national strategy of preventing financial risks in key areas and take a comprehensive approach in preventing mitigating risks in real estate sector and local debt.
Third, we will be comprehensive, proactive, granular, and prudent in risk management, and comprehensively deepen comprehensive risk management system and improve risk governance systems. We will establish a cut-off mechanism for all types of risk transference. Also, we should have four early principles to be more forward-looking in the risk judgment and more timely and proactive in identifying and mitigating the potential risks. Number five, to actively and to accurately reflect the quality of the assets, to have enough and prudent provisions. Also, we will have granular management and to keep the credit cost at a reasonable range. O verall, we are confident that we can maintain the stability of the asset quality for the whole bank for 2024 . Thank you.
For the interest of time, that's all for the Q&A for the analysts and investors. If you have further questions and inquiries, you can contact our team after the meeting. Next, I would hand over to Madame Yu Ke, spokesperson of the BOC, to chair the media Q&A session.
Thank you. Hello, everyone. It's a great pleasure for me to meet all of you again, and I hope that through today's communication, you can better understand the BOC, and you can help us convey our management philosophies and to spread our positive energy. Next, we'll have the media Q&A session. Please raise your hand if you have any questions. First question?
Hello, I'm from CCTV. First, congratulations to the bank for the good results. N otice that the BOC have provided strong support to the five priorities of financial development. What are the effective approaches in this regard? Thank you very much.
For this question, I'd like to give the floor to Vice President Cheng to take.
Thank you very much for the question. In the QA session, as well as the presentation, Chairman Ge have given some answers. We implement the national strategy, by we make a work plan to the five key priority areas and focus on the upgrading of the traditional areas, as well as in cultivating the new areas to provide service to the cultivation of the new quality productive forces. Our quality of service have been improved on five aspects.
In terms of Fintech, CCTV, based on the head office as well as the 24 Fintech centers, we enhanced our service capability to the strategic technology as well as the technology companies and talents to provide a full life cycle, as well as a diversified financial service to provide a specific credit approval process, as well as credit assessment models, specifically for the Fintech companies or the technology companies. We would like to invest early in the small companies and long-term investment, and we optimize our Fintech, insurance companies insurance products in supply. We also cooperate with the financial innovation partners, build ecosystem with the research and investment companies. [We aim] to build benign circulation for technology, products, and finance.
In terms of green finance, we diversified our green finance, green equity financing, green financial leasing, as well as green asset management, improve our comprehensive and green service scale, and deepen our global cooperation, participate in the UN climate conference, as well as the UN biodiversity conference, and participate in the green financing standards making.
In terms of inclusive finance, we deepened our outreach to build inclusive finance service system built on focus on the small and micro companies in the technologies and improve our service to the enterprises with specialized innovation and improved our coverages, and also provided credit support for companies and to staying afloat, as well as ensuring their employment and provide service to the agricultural revitalization and rural revitalization, and build some featured industries, for example, the tourism in rural areas, and also build global matchmaking. We have BOCE platform to build the investment tracking, as well as optimized our comprehensive online platform to build featured plan to the key customer groups to improve our quality of inclusive finance to provide a service to those need the most.
In terms of pension finance, we built pension finance center, as well as coordinated our pension finance work. We enhanced our top design. We implemented 3-3-3-1 development strategy. The first three is to deploy the pension finance, pension personal finance, personal industry finance, the three key areas. The second is to provide service to government, businesses, and individuals. Third, build a global, comprehensive, and scenario-based three advantages. The one is to build BOC-featured pension finance service system.
We have deepened our third pillar service, and we have a pension app at our mobile banking to both build the pension insurance system, as well as provide the personal pension finance service system, diversified our product supply, as well as a gray hair specific area at our mobile banking and build 1,000 demonstration areas. We also provide deepen our cooperation with the government agencies and provide policies, proposals, and actively communicated with the PBOC's and trial pilot projects, and also build the gray hair area matchmaking at the expo in Shanghai, and also promote the equity products service and technology cooperation with domestic and foreign pension companies. In terms of digital financing, we built action plan, including 30 specific action measures.
To be more specific, first, we enhanced our basic features and built our transformation of our technology architecture, and enhanced our application of the R&D, building the large models in the automated credit reporting. Second, to build in the digital assets quality or add value to support precise marketing, risk management, optimizing of operation, and empowering the high quality development. We upgraded the 9.0 version of Mobile Banking to help to improve our user experience, as well as combining the digital currency with the traditional industries. So we have the first digital currency wireless payment. Our digital financing consumption is among top among the peers. Thank you very much. Next question, please.
Thank you very much for the opportunity from China Securities. I'd like to ask about the digital transformation. What are the achievements and what are the next plan?
Thank you very much for the question. Vice President Cai Cai Xiao would like to take this question.
Thank you very much for the question. BOC actively participating in the digital financing trend, and to integrate our businesses with digital technologies and to build this synergy to accelerate the finance to transfer or shift into new finance. We have yielded some results. First, we have consolidated our digital transformations and foundation, and promoted the digital architecture transformation. The computing power has had 349 thousand servers, and provide support to the business development of the whole group. In H1 last year, we have four batches of production, and we built improved our the support to the business development of the group.
We have consolidated our business consolidation as well as the BOC One e-platform. Now, the storage has been reached 29 PB. The data platform we have covered 80% of the institutions, and the users reached 240,000, and we built a data center for precise marketing as well, risk management, to do the data analysis. The multiplier, in fact, has been achieved. Second, we have used the new driving forces of digital finance based on the algorithm and computing power, as well as data. We built while using and using the application to promote our computing power development. We have deepened the RPA, OCR, as well as other applications.
We have accumulated the channel and corporate banking, as well as other areas, including 2,900 scenarios in building the data security sharing. We're using the two computing technology to build our brand new risk spectrum, and we formulated 30 million scenarios with our customers or companies to improve our smart risk control mechanism. Third, we built global service scenario. The BOC Group customers, we have a full lifecycle service, as well as one point to connect in and a global response platform. We iterated a cross-border e-commerce platform, as well as expanded our e-commerce cross-border settlement and improved our technical investment to support our cross-border unified payment, and we promote the local clearing settlement.
We are number two among the global peers, as well as the safest direct and indirect participating companies, we are number one. Fourth, we improved our technical management mechanism. By echoing to the digital development trend, we optimized or restructured our digital finance committee. We set a digital finance commission and optimized our IT governance system, and improved the coordinated and see-through management, and improved our development team. We enhanced the group-wide R&D integrated operation and maintenance, so as to improve the efficiency and quality of our technology, as well as the security of the operation and business. We also refined our development process and optimized our management mechanism for the financial resources to improve our response, or remain agile to the market changes.
Looking forward, BOC will remain innovative and promote digital transformation, improve the convenience and competitiveness of providing financial service. To be more specific, first, we will do well in the digital finance, and I'll focus on F intech, green finance, inclusive finance, pension finance. In those four areas, we'll focus on the application scenarios and improve the functions of our products, and improve our online business intelligence, as well as our full process control. We'll use the new generation of open banking as well as a scenario building, promote the digitalization, as well as the digital public service ability, and to promote the real economy, digital economy integration. Second, we will build a strong engine of the technological application.
We'll continue to enhance our computing power infrastructure development, and build up multi-centers and multi-cloud development, as well as in the migrating the applications to the cloud, and then further tap into the digital multiplying effect, as well as in the leveraging on the big data, as well as AI, to improve the quality of our service. T hird, we will further consolidate our global advantages as well as our feature as providing comprehensive service. We are deploying a global Fintech business. We deploy the branch and company-specific plans to improve our power of providing service to China's diplomacy and foreign trade. Thank you very much.
Next question, please. This gentleman, please.
Thank you very much. I'm from Phoenix TV. I'd like to have a question about the global development.
We know that BOC is Chinese bank within the global presence, and we, in the third plenary, it is pointed out to promote the global development. How can we further consolidate your advantage and promote the high quality, high level of finance development? That is the future of BOC. A s your CEO, Mr. Liu, would like to take this question. Thank you very much for the question.
BOC is actively learning and implementing the third plenary guidance, as well as in the Central Financial Work Conference, and build globalization as the core of our strategic development, and take it as the top priority of BOC's development, using reform to improve our governance and further diversify our products and service, and to build capital saving development, risk control management, and deepen the one click and global response, provide a better service to our customers. In first half of this year, our overseas commercial banking deposits has been increased by 14.75%. Before tax profit increased by 11.04%, contributing 23.95% to the profit. We have been more capable of providing the service to the dual cycle development.
We will focus on the three aspects in leveraging our advantages. First, to help support the international economic trade investment cooperation and the construction of Shanghai and Hong Kong International Financial Center. We will take new and effective measures in supporting international economic and trade investment cooperation, and to achieve more tangible results in bringing in and going out. We will also seize the opportunity of foreign capital introduction, and to support the investment for Fortune 500 companies. We will enrich the cross-border financial services and product supply, and to improve our service capabilities for domestic and foreign trade integration, digital trade, and new types of offshore international trade, and seize the export opportunities and focus on the intermediary product exports and overseas warehouse development.
We will focus on the FTZ development and deeply engage in the institutional opening up of the financial sector. We will also serve the development of the Shanghai International Asset Management Center, the Shanghai International Reinsurance Center, the Shanghai International Financial Assets Exchange platform and to enable higher level opening up of the Shanghai Futures Exchange. We will also serve Hong Kong in building an offshore RMB business hub and the overseas asset management center and international and the Asian International Bond Center. Second, we will actively serve the BRI initiative and promote the internationalization of RMB. We will continue to follow up our efforts in the BRI cooperation in building a multifaceted interconnectivity work and a multilateral cooperation platform. We will focus on green development, digital economy, and AI, and to support the building of financial guarantee system that is long-term, stable, sustainable, and risk controllable.
We will promote the internationalization of RMB and seize the opportunity of using RMB in cross-border trade, settlement, and investment, and strengthen our support of services for the cross-border fund pool, the overseas loans, the Bond Connect, the CIBM, QFI, and the Cross-border Wealth Management Connect. We'll also consolidate our leading position in cross-border RMB clearing and fulfill our role as an RMB clearing bank, and improve our customer base and service capabilities, and to consolidate our market maker position in Shanghai Free Trade Zone and the Hong Kong offshore RMB market. Also, we will promote high quality, globalized development and the high quality and high level security. We will balance financial opening up and security and observe the bottom line of financial security. We will improve our judgment capabilities and closely follow the international situation and the global economic and political situation.
We will continue to implement the regulatory requirement and to proactively carry out compliance and AML management, so as to build a comprehensive management system and strengthen the overseas asset quality control. Thank you. Now, we will have the last question.
Hello, I'm Fu Na from China Banking and Insurance News. M y question is related to foreign trade. In the first half of this year, China has done a good job in foreign trade, but we all know that the international situation face a lot of uncertainties. A s one of the main banks to support the high quality development of foreign trade, so what has the BOC done in this respect, and what achievements have been made? H ow do you further leverage your advantages and unique characteristics to help build a dual circulation development pattern?
Okay, thank you. Mr. Zhang Xiaodong will take this question. Thank you for the question. Foreign trade is an important driver for domestic economic growth. It is an important lever for building a dual circulation pattern. A s one of the main banks to support the high quality development of China's foreign trade in the first half of this year, we have taken a lot of targeted measures and have achieved some good results. I'll talk about three aspects. First, we continue to consolidate our position as the main channel for financial services for foreign trade. In the first half of the year, the settlement amount of international trade and the settlement amount of cross-border RMB settlement increased by 12% and 24%, respectively, staying number one in the market.
We have launched the Export E-loan online financing product, providing financing support for micro and small foreign trade businesses. We have also helped to improve the payment facilitation. Second, we've also improved in providing better financial services for foreign trade businesses. We have reiterated the BOC Cross-border E-commerce Connect and other products. In the first half of this year, BOC's cross-border e-commerce settlement scale exceeded CNY 370 billion, up by 95% year on year. We've also provided differentiated financial services for overseas development, leasing, and operation. We have served altogether 270 overseas warehouse businesses by the end of June, and we have continued to provide stronger support for intermediary product trade and the three new export items and other key areas. Third, we have continued to consolidate our role as a financial bridge for foreign trade.
We have successfully served the Guangzhou Expo and the Consumption Expo. We've also leveraged our globalized operation advantages to help local customers attract more foreign investment. We've also leveraged our advantages in overseas layout to help the local government attract foreign customers and investments. We've also built connectivity platforms for global SMEs. By the end of June 2024, we have altogether organized one hundred and twenty-four overseas matchmaking activities. Looking into the future, as the global trade recovers and coupled with favorable foreign trade policies, China's foreign trade will continue to pick up, and BOC will continue to leverage our traditional advantages and make greater contribution in improving the quality and quantity of China's foreign trade and facilitating the domestic and international circulation.
First, we will further enrich the cross-border financial product and services supply, and improve our financial service capabilities for cross-border e-commerce, overseas warehouse, social trade, and a new type of offshore international trade. We'll also contribute to the establishment of the international logistics hub and the commodities resource allocation hub. Second, promote internationalization of RMB. We'll promote the use of RMB in BRI countries, and help build the offshore RMB market. Third, we will continue to help the foreign businesses or foreign trade-related businesses expand diversified market. We will help serve the major national exhibition events, and to respond to the needs of the businesses through one contact point, global response mechanism, and to make our voices heard, and make China's voices heard, and improve the global impact of China's foreign trade. Thank you. For the interest of time, we cannot take all your questions.
If you have any further questions, please contact us at any time. We 'll soon embrace the best season in Beijing, and we hope that we can together witness the most beautiful season and the best harvests. Just as Chairman Ge had said, BOC will take more effective measures in fostering new quality productivity, and to promote comprehensive and deep reform through our deep-lying plans. We will leverage our advantages in globalization and comprehensive services, and observe the bottom line of security, and make a greater contribution in Chinese-style modernization, and make greater contribution to the shareholder, society, and the country.