In a recent ICBC announcement, ICBC has accumulated issued 150.581 million Peony Cards by the end of May, breaking through 150 million. Amongst, number of Peony Money Link Card issued was 142.578 million; 14.756 million more than early of this year, increased by 10%. Number of Peony Credit Card issued was 8.003 million, 555,000 more than early of this year, increased by 7.5%.
ICBC Person-in-Charge introduced that since this year, ICBC Peony Card Business has been grown robustly by consistently following the operating development strategy of taking priority on market. The breakthrough of issuing 150 million Peony Cards signified that ICBC card business started a new landscape.
It is introduced that with the increasing card issuance, the consumption amount by ICBC Peony card will definitely rapidly rise as well. ICBC data indicated that from January to April this year, Card consumption by ICBC Peony Card reached RMB 78.9 billion, and accumulatively RMB 1.96 billion in accepting other banks' cards on ICBC POS.
Statistics from China Union Pay showed that transactions and amount of ICBC Peony Card inter-bank consumption were respectively 34.26 million and RMB 46.3 billion in the first quarter. The transaction ratio is 17.8%, stabilizing ICBC leading position in consumption volume among domestic card issuance institutions.
The ICBC Person-in-charge stated that Peony Card business was picking up steam as a result of two efforts. First, brand recognition of Peony Card was drastically improved after ICBC launched wide promotions focused on Peony CNPC Co-brand Credit Card, Hainan Airlines Co-brand Credit Card, Student Credit Card and World Cup Theme Credit Card. Second, exuberant customer services owing much to the ICBC moves in strengthening product varieties and functions.
New innovative functions such as Optional Password, Short Message service, Credit Card Auto-Repayment, Money Link Card Overseas Consumption are all designed following the new requirements of market in order to better serve customers. On June 3, ICBC completed the restructuring of expanding exit of Short Message System for transaction reminding.
ICBC Balance Reminding Services has received general applause since its launch. Growth of business volume has increased tremendously within a short period. Number of short messages sent in this May was twice the amount compared to early of this year. In order to offer more convenient and all-round short messages service to all customers, ICBC made a timely move to expand the system.
Delivery volume of Short Message System was immensely improved, as well as the real-time service for Balance Changes Notification. A statistics on June 4 revealed that over 98% of short messages can be successfully sent in 2 minutes.
ICBC unswerving efforts in Peony Card business also gained wide social recognition. Recently, China Union Pay and China General Chamber of Commerce award ICBC "2005 Best Cooperation in Obstacle-free Nationwide Card-Spending with Distinguished Merchant". This was an award to ICBC contributions in improving acceptance of banking cards in commercial arena. Merchants are more eager to accept banking cards and cardholders can enjoy the convenience to use card to spend. ICBC played a significant role in promoting the development of banking card industry in China commercial market.
