OREANDA-NEWS. August 14, 2013. Since January this year, ICBC continues expanding and improving online services through deployment of physical outlets and electronic channels in tandem and complementary to each other. Electronic banking of ICBC has been growing at a respectable clip as a channel of convenience for service.

In the H1, 2013, 22 billion e-channal transactions posted a turnover of RMB 180 trillion up 13% year-on-year. Over 77% of ICBC's retail transaction volume ran through electronic banking platform as of today. This means 77 out of every 100 transactions are now done through electronic banking.

ICBC is the earliest commercial bank in China to launch large-scale electronic banking implementation, said an executive with the Bank. At a time of information society leading to the rising demand of diversified financial services from the customers, ICBC consistently employs cutting-edge IT system to add innovation and convenience across its electronic banking channels (Internet Banking, Mobile Banking, Telephone Banking, SMS Banking, Self-service Banking). New products are launched to meet client needs in the shortest span. More services are easily accessible through various electronic channels.

When it comes to online banking, ICBC remains the house to beat. At the end of June, 2013, ICBC had 150 million customers using online Personal Internet Banking, up 15% when compared with corresponding period last year. Turnover of ICBC online banking transactions grew by 12%. In Mobile Banking, the exponential growth was illustrated by over 15 million new users in the first half 2013, an increase of over 20% over the end of 2012. Turnover of ICBC mobile banking transactions surged more than 10 times which reinforced the market dominance of ICBC in this field.

Given the prevalence of mobile communication and wireless network, ICBC actively promotes mobile financial services by extending electronic banking services for all mobile terminal device users using cutting-edge technology. ICBC is the first bank in the country to roll out "ICBC Mobile Banking" services, which represents a wide range of ICBC mobile financial products: SMS Banking, Mobile Banking (WAP), iPhone Banking, Android Banking, WindowsPhone Banking, iPad Banking, Personal Internet Banking for Apple computer users, Corporate Mobile Banking, Personal Internet Banking for Windows 8 tablet PC users, Windows Phone 8 Banking, iPhone Banking (USB-Shield) and iPad Banking B2C payment. As of end of June, 2013, ICBC had a base of over 100 million mobile banking users.

While offering a full range of convenient and speedy financial services to mobile terminal device users, ICBC uses the GPS (Global Positioning System) function of mobile terminal devices to deliver useful information and navigation directions such as location of nearest bank outlets, banking hours. The mobile terminals combined with gravity sensor and multi-touch let customers experience faster and more trendy mobile services. All these services are not only welcomed by all customers, they also bring the operational convenience of banking and payment for daily expense to the door step of customers.

Meanwhile, ICBC focuses on speedy online payment services. ICBC is the first bank in China to roll out "ICBC e Payment", a service for making online payment fast and easy. Once registered, users can make small payments for online shopping, pay bills, transfer or remit money via Internet Banking or Mobile Banking. Due to its convenience and reliability, "ICBC e Payment" has gained wide acceptance in the market since its launch in October, 2011. Currently thousands of e-commerce merchants across the country accept online payment through "ICBC e Payment". During the first six months of this year, number of online payments via "ICBC e Payment" and transaction volume rose over 110% and 120% respectively compared to the same period last year. Further, ticketing websites of railways and airline companies all offer "ICBC e Payment" services for passengers to buy and pay train/airline tickets easily.

While focusing consistently in enhancing electronic banking functions, ICBC also emphasizes the quality of services attending every detail in a bid to let customers experience more convenient and comfortable services. ICBC launches an intelligent voice recognition Telephone Banking service, the first such service in China using industry-leading voice recognition technology to determine the services needed by the customers automatically, intelligently and accurately. Using the new services customers do no need to press phone buttons so many times as before, faster and more convenient. In order to shorten the waiting time of customers, ICBC assigns more staff to attend customer calls. At present, ICBC has over 6000 call desk staff who attend more than 400,000 incoming calls every day on average. Over 90% calls answered within 20 seconds allows ICBC edging ahead all other banks in China.

In SMS Banking, more functions are included to meet customer demand. ICBC SMS Banking is easy to use. Customers just edit the question into a SMS and send to 95588. SMS Banking will send back an accurate reply immediately. By end-June this year, ICBC SMS Banking answered 71.07 million SMS sent by more than 23.67 million customers. ICBC SMS Banking provides faster services while generating higher turnover. It only takes 25 seconds to process one short message on average. In an effort to upgrade SMS Banking on a continuous basis, ICBC is the first bank in China to launch SMS Banking mobile app for all Android cell phones and iPhone. On top of the speedy functions of ICBC SMS Banking, the new ICBC SMS Banking mobile app offers 9 categories of services, including account enquiry, transfer/payment, ICBC Messenging, financial news, customer setting, hot functions and credit card services, which are available for customers to look for further information, check accounts, subscribe or use other banking services. The new app improves the friendliness, availability and self-services of SMS Banking services.