OREANDA-NEWS. May 07, 2013. ICBC and China Taiping Insurance Group Co. ("Taiping") have joined forces to launch "ICBC-Taiping" co-branded chip debit card, according to an announcement. This is the first nationwide co-branded chip card with financial and banking insurance functions.

"ICBC-Taiping" co-branded chip card is a new financial product tailored for Taiping's life insurance customers and property insurance customers. Besides all the financial functions of an ICBC debit card, the new co-branded card also offers an array of bank-insurance services for Taiping customers to check insurance policy, change insurance details, renew/pay insurance policy, schedule insurance service, look up insurance company information or apply for loan secured by insurance policy.

This means that, from now on customers just login ICBC internet banking or mobile banking or visit a self-service terminal when they need insurance services, very convenient. In this way, services from bank and insurance company are consolidated, instead of being separated as in the past when banks sell insurance products at the counter, while insurance company provides customer services. In the next step, depending on what the cardholders want, ICBC and Taiping will roll out exclusive financial products for cardholders as necessary in order to improve the services.

According to an ICBC official, "ICBC - Taiping" co-branded chip cards can be "China Taiping Elite Club Account Card" or "China Taiping Money Link Card", both are PBOC 2.0 standard chip + magnetic stripe cards. A chip card has an embedded microchip that can store much more information. Besides all the financial functions of magnetic-stripe cards, the chip cards also include some personalized intelligent functions for offline transactions, contactless transactions, member management and bonus point programs.

ICBC and Taiping Life Insurance is going to launch a new insurance product called "Taiping 'Safe on the Road' Accident Injury Insurance". Holders of "ICBC - Taiping" co-branded chip card or other ICBC debit card are all welcomed to buy the insurance at ICBC self-service devices (about 44, 000 transfer/remittance machines or bill payment enquiry machines), no underwriting required.