Banking Race in Space Infrastructure: The Path from "Map Buyers" to "Launchers"

In the realm of financial technology, the sky is becoming an extension of the ground-based credit battlefield. In January, near the sea area of Rizhao, Shandong, China Merchants Bank's "CMB Golden Osmanthus" and SPD Bank's "SPD Smart Data" were both launched into orbit on the same day. Under the current "space craze," it's not uncommon for major institutions to name satellites, but if you look more closely, you’ll find something essentially different in this launch— Satellites from the two shareholding banks have both connected to the "Tianqi Constellation," becoming active nodes in the low-orbit IoT constellation network. **The data returned by the satellites will no longer pass through third-party data providers but will flow directly to the banks.** From the early explorations of Ping An Bank to the network-building moves of China Merchants Bank and SPD Bank today, the logic behind Chinese banks’ application of space technology is undergoing a profound transformation. Behind this race is a technological breakthrough as financial institutions seek to overcome supply chain risk control bottlenecks, data sovereignty concerns, and business continuity pressures. **Territorial Divide** In today's financial space landscape, banks, based on their strengths and strategic needs, are gradually splitting into two paths: One path is the "launch faction," which owns hardware assets, and the other is the "map-buying faction," which relies on algorithms and purchases data services. China Merchants Bank, SPD Bank, and Ping An Bank—who have met in space—are the main force in launching satellites. The "CMB Golden Osmanthus" and "SPD Smart Data" satellites designed for this launch are developed by GDGK and belong to Tianqi Constellation's Group 37-40; Before this, Tianqi Constellation had completed its first phase of networking, in which CMB's "CMB No.1" and "CMB No.2" satellites launched between 2024-2025 are included. Unlike high-orbit satellites focused on broadcasting and broadband communications, Tianqi Constellation is dedicated to short-data communications across the sky, earth, seas, and land, ensuring signals from assets like containers, buoys, and trucks even in oceans, deserts, and mountains lacking ground-based stations. The critical point of this launch is that it is a key enhancement following the first phase networking of Tianqi Constellation; The newly added satellites will increase constellation density, shorten revisit intervals, enable more frequent passes over the same location, lower data return latency, and with higher transmission bandwidth, support more concurrent terminal device connections—paving the way for large-scale commercial use. Before CMB and SPD Bank, Ping An Bank had already launched "Ping An No.1" and "Ping An No.2" between 2020-2022, initiating the "Nebula IoT Plan" to create IoT solutions focusing on supply chain finance. Space industry investment insider Zhang Shu (alias) explains the main satellite categories: remote sensing, navigation, communications, and scientific experiments; Remote sensing satellites mainly capture ground images, with institutions purchasing images useful for their operations—for example, water conservancy departments monitoring water levels and floods, land departments tracking illegal mountain constructions; For banks, the core value in satellite remote sensing is turning images into data assets for lending. However, banks have long been familiar with using remote sensing technologies. Compared to the heavy-asset investment of the "launch faction," more banks prefer **purchasing remote sensing data from satellite companies and then processing it**, in which case banks do not need to own satellites—just the capability to read and understand satellite imagery. MYbank is representative of this model. Its original "Great Tit" system applies satellite remote sensing to rural finance: by analyzing satellite-captured spectral images, the system can identify whether rice or corn is planted on the ground and even determine whether crops are in heading or filling stages, thereby estimating yields and values to support loans for farmers lacking credit records. Other institutions have aimed at corporate businesses. For example, Citic Financial Asset has purchased satellite remote sensing monitoring data services for scenarios like ongoing construction projects and finished properties, able to use sequential satellite images to monitor the physical status of projects; Industrial Bank focuses on green finance, using remote sensing to calculate forestry carbon sinks. By monitoring vegetation cover and growth via satellites, the bank can quantify "CO2 in the air" into mortgageable financial assets. Additionally, Agricultural Bank, Postal Savings Bank, and China Everbright Bank have all embedded similar remote sensing data services into their supply chain finance or inclusive finance products. From "looking at the sky to eat" to "looking at the earth to lend," satellite remote sensing has become a mature alternative data source for banks' credit risk control. It's worth noting that these two paths are not mutually exclusive. For example, CMB, which launched satellites in this round, also said remote sensing technology has deeply integrated into its risk control system; Through its self-developed system, the bank performs high-precision construction monitoring for mortgage properties nationwide. With high-resolution imagery, progress monitoring accuracy exceeds 95%, and services are also provided to provident fund and housing departments, creating a full-chain risk control loop for project management. **Why Must Banks Go to Space?** Since buying images already solves many problems, why do major shareholding banks still invest heavily in launching satellites? The driving force comes from lower commercial space costs and banks' desire to upgrade risk control capabilities. **First, it’s about cost recalibration.** With rapid technological development, "custom satellites" are no longer prohibitively expensive. An industry insider close to space companies told Xinfeng that one breakthrough for low-orbit IoT satellites is reduced manufacturing costs. Research shows that satellites in Tianqi Constellation’s batches 8-21 are all micro-nano satellites under 50kg. **According to Zhang Shu, market estimates put the cost of these custom satellites at between one million and tens of millions of RMB.** For a shareholding bank with annual profits in the tens or hundreds of billions, this expense isn't particularly high. **But the investment could mean a generational leap in business logic.** "Buying images is always more passive," said the insider. Remote sensing satellites have strict observation time windows and are greatly affected by weather. If there's persistent rain or conflicting satellite orbits, the construction site or port a bank wants to monitor becomes a blind spot. Customization allows maximum flexibility: reliable data can be transformed into financial assets, serve decision-making, or even be packaged and sold. Zhang Shu also mentioned the importance of payload customization: generic optical satellites can only take pictures, but additional satellites can be equipped with synthetic aperture radar (SAR) or specific sensors as needed. "For example, banks might want to penetrate cloud cover to monitor infrastructure in southern rainy seasons, or measure specific gas concentrations in a carbon emission pilot zone," Zhang Shu explained. "These advanced demands might require custom payloads." By launching satellites, these shareholding banks are also focusing on network building. The "CMB Golden Osmanthus" and "SPD Smart Data" satellites are part of Tianqi Constellation's Group 37-40 satellites. "A satellite’s projection over the Earth isn’t a point but a wavy sine-like curve," says Zhang Shu. A single satellite, limited by orbital physics, only passes the same location a few times per day, with time blind spots. "Just one satellite gives banks fragmentary snapshots, while a constellation greatly increases revisit frequency, expands monitoring area, and shortens data return intervals," Zhang Shu says. For risk control, smaller data latency means e-fencing becomes truly practical: if a pledged asset moves abnormally, banks can stop loss instantly rather than settle losses after the fact. CMB and SPD Bank also introduced a new concept in this launch—**financial disaster recovery**. Banks have begun validating low-orbit satellite communications technology in financial disaster recovery systems, simulating scenarios where ground networks are interrupted and successfully switching satellite links between main and branch office data centers. SPD Bank also revealed similar plans, saying in major natural or extreme disasters, it will rapidly restore key financial services via satellite links. This marks a shift from satellites as front-end customer acquisition tools to vital "back-end survival infrastructure" for banks. Amid frequent disasters, having an independent, self-controlled satellite communication link outside of ground fiber networks establishes a business continuity line of defense for financial institutions. Banks’ ambitions in space also draw a bigger picture—**empowering the commercial space industry**. Commercial aerospace companies have always been the classic "deep tech, long-cycle" asset: rocket R&D is complex, cost accounting is unique, and there’s a lack of collateral needed for conventional bank loans; banks often shy away due to unfamiliarity and risk aversion. Getting directly involved could be a deep due diligence step for banks. "Bank funds now pay more attention to aerospace; our company has also engaged with banks and AIC institutions," says Zhang Shu. "GDGK is still in fundraising, so more forms of interaction are quite normal." In addition to launching satellites, CMB’s wholly owned subsidiary CMB Financial Leasing has established the country's first SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle) satellite leasing business based on Tianqi Constellation’s network operations funding needs; By setting up project companies, CMB Financial Leasing provides equipment sale-and-leaseback to GDGK, using a "financing + asset leasing" model that perfectly matches commercial space companies’ needs for high-value equipment financing. **This forms a perfect closed loop: banks use satellites to improve risk control, satellite companies gain funding to build networks, and the banks’ clients enjoy high-quality financial services based on satellite IoT.** An ecosystem woven from capital, technology, and scenarios is becoming a new strategic moat for leading banks. As the sky becomes the transmission band for data, banks’ competition is no longer limited to counters and branches; Whoever weaves this network in space first may have stronger negotiating power in future supply chain finance and cross-border business. --- Risk Warning and Disclaimer The market contains risks; investments should be made cautiously. This article does not constitute personal investment advice, nor does it take into account individual user’s specific investment goals, financial situations, or needs. Users should consider whether any opinions, views, or conclusions in this article are suitable for their particular situation. Investments made on this basis are at your own risk.