ICBC received accolade for its Internet Banking services once again and ranked the top with absolute advantage over its competitors in the recent "Internet Banking Evaluation" held by Hexun, a renowned domestic financial website.
16 main domestic commercial banks were selected for this evaluation. Based upon the review of related functions provided by the personal Internet banking of domestic and foreign banks, Hexun adopted a systematic and scientific index system, which consisted of 30 indices and over 200 testing items and conducted a comprehensive assessment of the personal Internet banking of the selected banks from the aspects of "Popularity", "Platform Performance" and "Business Performance". ICBC gained the highest scores in all three aspects and ranked the top one in this test with the highest overall grade of 174.16, according to the internal statistics. (Details of evaluation criteria and methods can be found in www.hexun.com).
ICBC Internet Banking witnessed continuous rapid growth in recent years. By now, "Banking@Home" of ICBC Personal Internet Banking has encompassed rich services functions, such as account enquiry, transfer and remittance, bill payment, online payment for e-commerce, forex trading, funds and bonds investment. ICBC Corporate Internet Banking -- "e-Fortune Link", offers a series of comprehensive fund management services including account management, group financing, collection and payment services, online payment for e-commerce and short-term investment. According to the internal statistics, by the end of 2005, ICBC Internet Banking had accumulatively developed 14,857,000 personal customers and 325,000 corporate customers, with a trading volume of RMB 42.2 trillion. Internet Banking is now an important channel for ICBC to offer quality banking services to customers.
Meanwhile, ICBC website (www.icbc.com.cn) is playing a more and more pivotal role as a channel for providing customer service and conducting sales promotion. Daily views of the site, according to the internal statistics, rose from 80 thousand in 2002 to 2.28 million in 2005, an increase of 27 times compared to that of the 2002. Statistics showed that the page views of ICBC website ranked 314th in the global websites (data of Feb 9) announced by ALEXA, an international authoritative website ranking organization, which shows a leading role of ICBC in domestic even global bank websites.
The development and performance of ICBC Internet Banking had gained full recognition from all domestic and overseas peers as well as mass users. ICBC was awarded as "Best Personal Internet Banking of China" by American journal Global Finance for three consecutive years from 2003 to 2005. ICBC website was rewarded the honor of "The Best Banking Website" in both 2004 and 2005 by the investors' favored "China Excellence Financial-Economic Securities Website".
In the 2005 China Internet Industry Survey organized by China Internet Association, ICBC Internet Banking was ranked first of "China Top 50 Internet Industry Brands" by mass Internet users.
Result of this evaluation has high reference value owing to the data extracted from the websites of the participating banks by a third party evaluator and Hexun. ICBC Internet Banking consolidates its leading position further by winning this competition. It was noted that ICBC will spell out major efforts in the innovation of Internet banking services while maintaining its current prominence. Customers will enjoy more quality and all-inclusive online banking services provided by ICBC.
