ICBC internet banking bonanza

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), Chinas largest bank, continued to attract new customers to its internet banking services in droves during the first half of 2008.

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC),
China’s largest bank, continued to attract new customers to its
internet banking services in droves during the first half of
2008.

According to China’s official news agency
Xinhua, ICBC attracted 9.4129 million new personal internet banking
customers during the six months, up 27 percent compared with the
first half of 2007.

The increase in user numbers during the first
six months of 2008 took ICBC’s total personal internet banking
customer base to 48.49 million, up 24 percent compared with the end
of 2007.

The total at the end of 2007 equated to almost
one in four of the country’s 210 million internet users recorded by
the China Internet Network Information Centre in December
2007.

ICBC corporate internet banking user base also
recorded strong growth in the first half of 2008, attracting
294,200 new customers to reach a total of 1.27 million. This
represented an increase of almost 30 percent compared with the end
of 2007.

Transaction growth recorded by ICBC’s internet
banking services has also been impressive and now accounts for
about 40 percent of ICBC’s total transaction volume.

In 2007 transaction value via its internet
banking services totalled CNY102.88 trillion ($15 trillion) up
127.5 percent compared with 2006. This made ICBC China’s first bank
with an annual internet banking transaction volume of over a CNY100
trillion.

About 95 percent of ICBC’s internet transaction
value is accounted for by corporate internet banking.
Among many honours bestowed on ICBC in 2007 was that of ‘Best
Internet Bank in China’ awarded by the China Financial
Certification Authority, China’s online transactions regulatory
agency.