OREANDA-NEWS. May 10, 2011. Beginning from 2011, growth of ICBC precious metal business maintained its strong momentum of last year through product research and service innovation. ICBC recorded a trading turnover of over RMB 200 billion in precious metal business for the first quarter of this year. More than 20,000 tons of previous metal traded in Q1 represent as much as for the whole of 2010, bringing an important growth point of ICBC's intermediary business. Meanwhile, number of ICBC precious metal customers is surging, 600,000+ customers more than that against the end of previous year to over 3 million by the end of first quarter 2011, a significant boost to its customer base, reported the press-centre of ICBC.

At present, ICBC is the commercial bank in the country offering the most complete range of precious metal products by having a product portfolio: physical precious metal, precious metal trading, precious metal financing and precious metal wealth management, In terms of physical metal products, ICBC "Ruyi" brand of precious metal products were not only exquisitely made and well priced, but represented a marriage with Chinese folk culture and momentous themes in design. Sales of ICBC "Ruyi" precious metal was phenomenal in the January-to-March period of this year, hot selling products carried with festival greeting have been sold out of stock at one time. First quarter data shows that ICBC has totally sold 17 tons of physical gold, 27 tons of physical silver, nearly as mush as for the whole of last year. Worthy of note was that, ICBC offered a new service to buy back precious metal.

On March 18, ICBC opened its first center for selling and repurchasing gold in the West Railway Station Sub-branch of Beijing Branch. The range of gold that can be sold back to ICBC has been extended. Besides buying back the investment gold bar of ICBC brand as before, the Center also buys back all gold products (99% purity) or above. The service covers all the steps for customers to buy gold for investment and sell gold for cash. In the first quarter, ICBC also launched "Accrual Gold" on top of the "Ruyi Gold Accrual", a service for customers to invest gold at daily average price. Besides the low investment threshold, the service also helps customers, to the greatest extent, avoid the risk arising from the fluctuation of gold price. It caters for customers to buy gold in small amount at low risk, to preserve and add value to their assets.

In terms of precious metal trading service, ICBC registered explosive growth in the scale of paper gold, paper silver sold during the first quarter driven by the surging market prices of precious metal internationally. Especially silver, investors are turning to buy silver as the silver price is on another round of rising in the quarter, jacking up the trading volume of ICBC paper silver with over 200 tons on average every day. In January this year, ICBC was the first bank in China to roll out a new service for customers to trade platinum through accounts, offering more investment channels for customers to buy precious metal.

In terms of precious metal financing, ICBC fosters closer ties with large gold group corporation, companies either producers or users of gold to launch the gold leasing service. Fourteen ICBC branches have opened the service by the end of first quarter, leasing a total of over 10 tons of gold to the companies. This marks the beginning of ICBC's attempt on the financial services to an industry.

As related by an ICBC executive, ICBC was the first bank in China engaging in the professional precious metal service in 2009. Since then, the Bank leverages its strong technology, network expertise and professional staff to drive the product and service innovations to better align with the market demands. Today, ICBC is the bank in China having the largest scale of precious metal business. In the next step, ICBC will continue seizing the policy and market opportunities to explore the full potential of precious metal market. Through product innovation, resources consolidation and channel expansion to better serve customers' diversified investment needs. ICBC strives to improve its customer service capacity as a first-class precious metal investment and management bank in China.