Abstract: Improving a multi-level and sustainable financial service system can help break through the financial difficulties in rural areas. However, under the current approach, the performance of financial institutions in supporting agriculture and their operational performance exhibit a“seesaw effect”. Based on this, using the monthly data from 364 township small and micro branches and 6581 rural inclusive finance comprehensive service points of Guilin Bank clustered into 59 counties from 2020 to 2023, and taking the construction of a“city-county-township-village”four level service network as a symbol of Guilin Bank’s sinking into rural areas, this paper examines the social responsibility and commercial sustainability of urban commercial banks going to rural areas. The results indicate that the four-level service network can simultaneously improve both agricultural support performance and business performance, and rural elites have strengthened the effectiveness of agricultural support. The mechanism analysis shows that alleviating information asymmetry, effectively controlling costs, and improving risk sharing mechanisms are important paths to enhance the dual performance. Further analysis shows that the four-level service network can achieve dual improvements in agricultural support performance and business performance in underdeveloped counties and non-agricultural counties, but for the developed counties and agricultural counties, it can only improve their agricultural support performance. Therefore, financial institutions should strengthen the exploration of the potential of rural elites, establish sound incentive and restraint mechanisms, promote the development of county-level industries through multi-party linkage, and leverage the poverty reduction effect of the four-level service network. Government departments can provide more policy support to reduce the cost of going to rural areas and guide more non-traditional agricultural financial institutions to serve rural areas.

Key words: urban commercial banks, rural outreach, financial support for agriculture, business sustainability, rural elite