OREANDA-NEWS. February 03, 2012. In recent years, ICBC focuses on providing secure, fast and convenient financial services to customers via ATM and other self-service channels, in a bid to continue lifting up operation and management. At the end of 2011, ICBC had 52,000 ATMs in service where 11,000 new ATMs have been installed in 2011. In 2011, over 5 billion transactions went through ATM, to 5.256 billion, transaction turnover rose 44% over previous year to RMB 4.8 trillion, showing the higher service capacity and standard of ICBC, reported the press-centre of ICBC.

As China's economy prospers, financial spending habits of consumers have been changed significantly, ATMs and other self-service channels are getting more popular. Statistics showed that, in 2011, number of cash deposits and withdrawals through ATMs outstripped the deposits/withdrawals made at the counter. Today, ATM has become a main channel for customers to draw or deposit cash.

More ATMs have been installed in order to cater the change, said an executive with the Bank. Special efforts have been paid on the availability on the devices, functions and management. Various measures were adopted to provide fast and efficient ATM services. Now every day on average, one ICBC ATM handles 332 transactions involving nearly RMB 320,000, leading other banks in China. ICBC leverages its strengths in IT and product innovation to roll out a range of new ATM services - fast cash withdrawal, countdown timer, dynamic password authentication, which enhance the availability, safety and user-friendliness. As of today, at ATM, customers not only deposit or draw cash, transfer money, but pay utility bills (water, gas, electricity), phone bills or traffic fines. ATM is a good device for customers to run daily errands.

In the next step, ICBC will install more ATMs, put more resources, upgrade the functions so that customers can enjoy the convenient, top-quality financial services, said the executive with the Bank.