Rural banking in China seems an unmissable opportunity: 700m potential depositors, the vast majority of whom have never been within spitting distance of a credit card or a floating-rate mortgage.

The catch is that few rural Chinese actually want them. With income uncertain – most are farmers or migrant workers, liable to be fired at any time – they tend to stash savings with credit co-operatives, postal savings bank outlets or the Agricultural Bank of China. Servicing those 35,000 co-ops has not brought much joy in the past: non-performing loans to co-ops topped 37 per cent in 2002.