OREANDA-NEWS.  September 05, 2014. As the exclusive banking partner of Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Games ("YOG"), ICBC has worked with VISA to officially launch ICBC VISA YOG Souvenir Cards & Love (I) Sports Credit Cards, or the National Fitness Day, only 8 days away from the opening of Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Games.

ICBC VISA YOG Souvenir Cards & Love (I) Sports Credit Card is the first all-currency credit card carrying the VISA logo only, designed for sports and fitness purposes. The card features a distinctive appearance, powerful functions, payment safety and various privileges, which can meet young people's varied demands for fashion, sports and consumption, and provide more convenient, favoured and considerate financial services and payment experience to cardholders when doing sports and purchasing sports gears.

On appearance, the card is exclusively filled with Olympic elements. On the surface is the emblem of Nanjing 2014 and the image of "Lele", its mascot, rendering it relatively high commemorative significance and collection value. Meanwhile, it is also ICBC’s first credit card adopting a transparent surface design; its freshness, brightness and purity represent youth, vigor and fashion, fitting better into the qualities of the young.

On functions, the card is an "all-currency card" with more preferential services. Cardholders can use the card in any currency in any country, exempted from currency conversion fees unconditionally. Moreover, the repayment method is more user-friendly; customers can repay debts in their accounts by directly using 10 foreign currencies or choose to purchase foreign exchange for repayment in RMB. The ten currencies are USD, EUR, HKD, GBP, JPY, SGD, CAD, AUD,CHF and NZD.

On payment safety, the card adopts the universal EMV standard chip, making overseas payment safer and more reliable.

The card is also attached with more diverse sports privileges. Cardholders are entitled to special offers at many sports venues across the country for sports activities like swimming, bodybuilding, table tennis, badminton and tennis, and can make reservations at a discount with over 400 golf courses and driving ranges nationwide by dialing ICBC's credit card customer service hotline. The Bank, by cooperating with large and renowned sports brands, has also selected over 100 sportswear franchise stores nationwide to provide cardholders with discounts off the original price tags at Adidas, Nike, Puma, Converse and Li Ning, among others. In Nanjing, the host city of YOG 2014, the Love (I) Sports Card is loaded with local public transit and metro applications, and can be used both as a credit card and a public transit pass, allowing cardholders to enjoy green travel and a low-carbon life. In addition, ICBC has collaborated with famous domestic discount platforms to offer special offers in various sectors including food, movies, KTV, cosmetology, pharmacies, and oral care.

According to an ICBC official, with the booming of China’s fitness campaigns in recent years, customers have become increasingly enthusiastic about sports and health. The launch of the card is aimed at passing on the Olympic passion to customers, bringing sports benefits, and allowing more customers to join and enjoy sports for health, happiness and friendship. This embodies the long-term objective of ICBC's vision to serve society, and facilitate and benefit the people. Since becoming the exclusive banking partner of Nanjing 2014 two years ago, ICBC has conducted various activities around the theme of serving the event, including organizing service improvement campaigns, volunteer service teams, and conversion service of nine foreign banknotes across all the outlets in Nanjing. The bank also provided licensed YOG merchants with the foreign card acquiring service, online ticket sales, and online payment service for shop.nanjing2014.org, exhibiting a positive image of the Chinese banking industry.

Nanjing 2014 is another Olympic competition event hosted by China following the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, and also a comprehensive sports event with the highest profile and greatest influence staged by China in recent years. It is expected that nearly 4,000 young athletes from 205 countries and regions and 20,000 volunteers will participate in the big event, 2.8 million people will watch the games on site, which will draw the attention of 2.2 billion people around the world.