With thick-framed glasses and a tight short-sleeve black shirt, Huang Jianqin looks more like a designer than the chief executive of a Chinese bank. Only the model of a large golden bull – a traditional symbol of prosperity – on the corner of his desk suggests any association with the pursuit of wealth.

Yet Mr Huang is no ordinary Chinese banker. Henglong Small-Sum Loan, the lender he heads based in the coastal city of Wenzhou, is at the heart of an official reform experiment that aims to alter the shape of China’s economy by loosening the government’s grip on the financial sector.

Henglong targets the small businesses that are the lifeblood of the Chinese economy but have long been overlooked by the big state-run banks. Should the experiment succeed, Mr Huang’s institution and others like it will multiply and grow, giving rise to a more efficient financing model for the world’s second-largest economy, analysts say. Failure would leave China vulnerable to a sharp slowdown.