Your financial services website (whether it be banking, wealth management, fintech, or consulting) is often the first way potential clients, investors, or partners discover and evaluate your business. If you have any stakeholders or clients in China, you’ll naturally need your website to function reliably and efficiently there.
Unfortunately, as with over 90% of global websites, you might find your site performs poorly in China due to blocked or slow-loading resources. Delays and timeouts can impact user confidence and impede your ability to serve clients in the world’s second-largest economy.
In this guide, we’ll unpack why your financial services website may be slow or inaccessible in China and how you can fix it.
Disclaimer: This guide is informational and does not constitute legal advice. Chinafy is not a legal or corporate advisory entity, and, given that every business is different, we suggest consulting with your internal legal counsel if you would like advice on any legal or compliance-related concerns, or alternatively we can connect you with one of our partners.
TL;DR
China compatibility: Over 90% of global websites load slowly in China, if at all, and are often missing key functionality like forms, videos, and more.
Primary obstacles: Financial services websites frequently rely on analytics trackers, interactive tools, and embedded resources (e.g., Google APIs) that aren’t China-friendly.
Potential solutions: To resolve code-based and infrastructure-based incompatibilities between your website and China’s internet environment, you need to consider third-party resources on your website and the means by which you’re delivering the content to the end user (i.e. a Content Delivery Network (CDN)).
Ongoing maintenance: China’s internet landscape is constantly evolving, so regular testing and updates are key.
Here are two tools you can try out to see how your site loads in China:
Global speed test - test your site from 18 servers around the world including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Visual speed test - watch and compare your site as it loads in real-time from outside versus inside of China.
Running these tests is a first step to spotting where bottlenecks occur to set a benchmark for any improvements you make later.
Some of the most common websites Chinafy works with include investor relations portals. Most financial services websites are first and foremost, informative.
China’s financial sector is expanding quickly, encompassing everything from investment banking to digital payment services. Ensuring your site is accessible there can help you reach a massive pool of potential clients and partners.
Financial services hinge on trust. A slow or inaccessible site can undermine your credibility. If Chinese investors or clients can’t view your offerings or track portfolio performance, they may lose confidence in your capabilities.
Whether you’re a global bank, a private equity fund, or a fintech startup, opportunities often hinge on seamless collaboration. An optimized website for China is vital for attracting and communicating with local institutions, regulators, and customers.
Many financial services websites need to provide up-to-the-minute data, such as currency rates, and market analyses. Latency or incomplete loading in China disrupts the intended user experience and can cause costly delays or errors.
With numerous international and domestic firms competing in China’s financial sphere, an accessible, fully functional website is an important foundational element communicating yours as a future-ready business that caters to a global client base.
While some websites are officially blocked in China, most others simply just don’t work well because they’re not optimized for the Chinese internet. Those that suffer from poor performance in China do so due to two primary reasons: code incompatibility and infrastructure limitations as it’s specifically related to the China internet ecosystem.
Many financial services websites use third-party resources such as analytics and tracking scripts (e.g., Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel), interactive charts and dashboards reliant on Google APIs or other blocked or poorly-functioning CDNs, video explainers from YouTube or Vimeo, and social media links or widgets.
In China, some of these third-party resources may be blocked altogether, while others perform poorly and lead to long load times or time-outs. When a browser tries to retrieve blocked or restricted content, it gets “stuck,” leading to delays of 30 seconds or more.
Hosting your website outside of China creates additional latency due to the physical distance between your servers and the end users in China.
Even with global CDNs, the majority do not have Points of Presence (PoPs) by default inside China and so the distance still slows down site performance. Even if they do have Points of Presence inside of China, they’re not automatically included in your CDN package as you would still have to fulfill certain prerequisites in order to leverage them.
Financial platforms often require real-time data access. High latency and incomplete load times degrade user experience and can pose regulatory or operational risks.
Many financial sites we work with first reach out to address experience issues with their investor relations portals. These portals typically provide up-to-date, multilingual information to investors worldwide. In particular, these users have highlighted the importance of brand guardianship and ensuring that their professionalism is consistently conveyed to website visitors globally, including in China. If a blocked or slow-performing resource stalls page loading, you risk losing trust when users can’t access vital account or market information.
It would be easy to think that by removing the obvious third-party resources (like Google Maps or YouTube videos) from your website, the site would consequently load fast and fully in China.
However, the nature of China’s internet ecosystem means that the way third-party resources work in China differ and evolve over time so there is no one-off list or means to edit these resources. Changes will likely have to be made on an ongoing basis.
Chinafy is a specialized solution that can identify third-party resources that are causing web performance issues for your site in China.
Chinafy will then replace, remove or optimize incompatible resources on a China-friendly version of your site.
This means you maintain your global site’s functionality everywhere else, while ensuring visitors in China see a version that runs efficiently and fully.
When a user accesses your website from China, the browser usually has to retrieve files from servers located outside of China, sometimes as far away as the US or Europe. This leads to slower load times, higher latency, or even timeouts, despite your site performing just fine in the rest of the world. The Chinese internet is also designed uniquely with its own configurations and rules that may add to increased latency for global websites.
Misconceptions around CDNs tend to fall into two categories. Some people think:
That all global CDNs should make websites run well in China by default.
Many "global CDNs" don't have Points of Presence (PoPs) in China because using a CDN there requires meeting specific prerequisites. As a result, these CDNs often fail to address the infrastructure challenges faced by global websites.
That using only a CDN will make your website compatible with China’s internet environment.
CDNs don’t resolve code- or file-based issues relating to blocked or restricted third-party resources that could lead to your site still loading slowly or failing to load altogether.
Using an onshore CDN will store and deliver your website’s content closer to end users in China, but because the servers are within mainland China, there are regulatory prerequisites to using them, particularly within the financial services industry, including:
Obtaining an ICP filing or license
Establishing a local entity or partnering with a local provider
Registering your website with the Public Security Bureau (PSB)
Remaining compliant with China’s content regulations, such as data localization.
The decision to host your automotive website within China or use a China CDN is an organization-level decision. Irrespectively, it’s important to remember that it is not a silver bullet to a fast-performing website, as third-party resources can remain an issue.
Whether your automotive site is hosted offshore or onshore, Chinafy can be bolted onto your existing technical stack to achieve faster loading times, and more functional website experience.
Similar to using a China-compatible CDN, physically hosting your site in China can reduce latency on certain parts of your website. Keep in mind that if this is the same website serving global visitors, this may inadvertently worsen load times for users in other regions.
One of the common misconceptions of hosting onshore is that it’s simply a case of replicating the site on a server within China. The reality is that a move to an onshore host typically requires a simplification of the website, in addition to legal and regulatory requirements, as even China-hosted sites face functionality issues when certain files or code conflict with China’s internet.
If it makes sense to do so, hosting your financial service business’s website onshore has certain prerequisites:
ICP License: An ICP license or filing is mandatory if you want to host within China. This usually requires a local entity or a partnership with a Chinese company. Some activities (e.g., offering banking, insurance, or securities products) may trigger additional licensing requirements from the relevant regulatory body.
Legal structure: Some brands establish a Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprise (WFOE) or joint venture with a local Chinese company.
Ongoing compliance: Even with onshore hosting, be prepared to continually monitor changes in policies that may affect your content or domain.
Given the complexity of financial services, you likely already manage compliance requirements in multiple regions. Adding China web optimization to your IT team’s workload can be overwhelming without a streamlined solution.
Chinafy often gets compared to CDNs but Chinafy is not a CDN. Chinafy is the only China web compatibility solution able to intelligently identify, replace or remove blocked or slow resources for your visitors in China on an ongoing basis so that your site loads fast, and fully.
Generates a version of your website for China visitors without affecting your current site.
Combines both in-person and platform-level features to detect and replace blocked or slow resources that cause loading delays.
Speeds up content delivery with a China-friendly CDN.
Typically takes only a couple of weeks to implement with minimal IT involvement from your team.
Chinafy is also compatible with most, if not all CMS platforms that you are currently using as our technology sits as a layer above your website.
From global investment banks to boutique wealth management firms, Chinafy ensures your website meets clients and investors in China with the performance they expect from a trusted financial partner.
Even if your financial services website is fully optimized today, the Chinese internet environment is dynamic. Regular checks ensure you stay ahead of any new incompatibilities or policy shifts.
If you’re not using Chinafy, here are two quick tips to stay on top of changes that could impact your site in China:
Periodic testing: Run speed tests - both synthetic and real user monitoring (RUM) - from multiple locations in China (e.g., Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou) on a frequent basis.
Stay informed on policy changes: Subscribe to relevant updates or rely on a trusted partner to keep you compliant with changing regulations.
Optimizing your financial services website for China can enable you to serve an enormous market effectively while strengthening your global brand. By ensuring your site loads quickly and fully, you could enhance trust, boost conversions, and remain competitive in one of the world’s most important financial centers.
If you’d like to discuss how Chinafy can help you optimize your site for China, get in touch with us today.