OREANDA-NEWS. April 25, 2011. In recent years, ICBC pushed for a strategic leap forward from "large" to "strong" in the retail banking sector. The Bank fuels the rapid growth of retail banking business by tapping fresh market, developing new product and improving service quality. ICBC retains and takes top position as "No.1 retail bank in China". As of end of 2010, ICBC continues to stay ahead of the pack in all major retail financial areas of savings deposit, personal loan and personal intermediary business, with nearly RMB 5.2 trillion in the balance of RMB savings deposits, over RMB 1.6 trillion in the balance of personal loans, and RMB 2.3 trillion in the sales revenue of personal wealth management products, reported the press-centre of ICBC.

In 2010, ICBC focused on aggressive market share growth in high-end customers across some new segments: commodity trading market, new type of consumer market, modern service market, new factor market, different markets derived from reform and overseas market. ICBC Merchant Friend Club, Celebrities Wealth Management Club are new types of marketing and promotion and represent ICBC's successful attempts to win customers through the cluster development. ICBC has 43 million personal customers more than the beginning of 2010, to 259 million at the end of the year. Assets of mid-to-top customers account for 82.46% of the total, up 0.7 percentage points from the beginning of the year. The result points to the fast growth of ICBC customers and continuous optimization of customer structure.

ICBC remains committed to innovation to meet the demand of more and more diversified financial services from the customers, leveraging its technological strength to create a full range of personal banking products and looking at the best delivery of financial services to the customers. Baby Growth Card, Merchant Friend Card, "Green Life" Celebrity Card, Smile Angle Foundation Card, Leon Money Link Card are examples of different types of co-branded cards launched in succession nationwide to serve specific customer groups. Meanwhile, ICBC, the leading card issuer of chip card, also participated in issuing city resident card, social security card and medical insurance card for all residents to access financial services via community service platform.

In terms of person loans, ICBC has launched many innovative products such as online link and card loan link. Individual customers use "Card Loan Link" to apply for revolving loan using the revolving credit line available in the debit card, or "Online Loan Link" to draw or repay loan revolvingly via internet banking. In terms of investment and wealth management, a range of wealth management products are launched in line with the market demand: "Win Every Step" for interest bearing in periods, exclusive wealth management products during the public/national holiday, convertible bond and "Perfect Match" structured products. Besides, ICBC also launched wealth management advisory services for all personal customers beginning from 2010. The bank leverages its independently-developed model to provide professional services (risk assessment, financial diagnosis, financial planning and investment portfolio management) based on customers' risk appetite, investment preference and asset structure. The launch of the services helps defend ICBC dominance in high-end customer market.

Through the channel consolidation in recent years, ICBC has established a hierarchical network of outlet service scheme - "wealth management center - VIP wealth management center - integrated wealth management outlet - financial kiosk". In outlet deployment, the aim is to sharpen the core competence of ICBC outlets by opening new outlets, reconstructing inefficient outlets and relocating existing outlets to serve new market and new customers.

Meanwhile, ICBC leverages its electronic banking platform, through continuous improvement, to create synergies with the physical outlets. At the end of December, 2010, ICBC has 96.25 million personal internet banking customers, 72.28 million personal telephone banking customers and 29.50 million mobile banking (WAP) customers, ranking No.1 among the domestic peers. More self-service devices for transfer, remittance, bill payment are installed in the communities, office buildings, merchandize mart for meeting the diversified needs of target customers. Data shows that 59% of ICBC retail transactions go through electronic banking, which plays a critical role for the Bank to improve its service efficiency for personal customers.