It is reported that ICBC was granted the "Best Retail Bank of China" award by The Asian Banker magazine on the excellence awards ceremony for Asian retail financial industry. It is introduced that the "Best Retail Bank of China" award is the supreme honor that The Asian Banker issues to the retail banking industry in China, and ICBC has won the award for the fourth time in the past six years. Meanwhile, ICBC also won two awards, i.e. "Best Large Retail Bank of China" and "Best Multi-channel Bank of China".
It is reported that The Asian Banker magazine' s assessment standards on best retail bank include the achievement of retail trade, product sale and innovation, business operation procedure, channel distribution and efficiency, retail business team construction, etc. The magazine says it awards three titles, i.e. "Best Retail Bank of China", "Best Large Retail Bank of China" and "Best Multi-channel Bank of China", mainly based on the following considerations:
First, ICBC has improved its retail business achievement by a large margin. The bank has significantly raised its retail business revenue in 2007, and its indexes all rank the top in banking industry, such as individual deposit and loan balance, sales amount of wealth management products, issue volume and consumption amount of bank cards, the number of Personal Internet Banking customer, which makes ICBC remain the position of China' s first retail bank.
Second, product sale and innovation ability have been improved rapidly. ICBC strengthened the innovation of wealth management products, and launched the first extra-short term wealth management product that was popular among the customers. In 2007, ICBC posted RMB1,118,700 million from the sales of banking wealth management products, and other wealth management products such as funds, insurance, and national debt, which makes ICBC hold a safe lead in the banking industry.
Third, the business procedure has been further optimized. In 2007, ICBC streamlined the procedure of personal financial business in an all-round way, and launched the procedure transformation of 137 projects, upgraded the standardized service procedures in business outlets, and incorporated into the service procure the newly-developed personal customer marketing system and business outlet achievement evaluation system, and thus further improved the business procedure, and promoted service efficiency.
Fourth, multi-channel comprehensive marketing ability has been further strengthened. ICBC implements the business outlet differentiation development strategy, and has set up the classified and hierarchical business outlet function system, and planned and constructed a batch of wealth management centers and honored guest's wealth-managing centers targeting the mid- and high-end customers, and has promoted the transformation of business outlet operation strategy.
Meanwhile, ICBC implements the strategy of coordinated development through multiple channels, and established the channels such as self-service bank, online bank, telephone bank, etc to give full play to channel synergetic effect, and established diversified marketing channel system. At the end of 2007, the number of customers of ICBC' s Personal Internet Banking reached 39,080,000, and that of Telephone Banking customers reached 34,400,000, both figures ranking the first in the banking industry.
Fifth, the qualities of account managers have been further improved. In 2007, ICBC had more than 20,000 account managers, among them, there are 861 account managers with Certified Financial Planner (CFP) qualification, and 5,083 account managers with Associate Financial Planner (AFP) qualification, both figures ranking the first place in the banking industry. High-quality account manager team lays a solid foundation for ICBC to improve the professional skill of wealth management and to attract the high-quality customers.
According to Chen Xiaoyan, general manager of Personal Financial Services department of ICBC, the bank will continue to accelerate the transformation and development of personal financial business, strengthen product innovation, and offer more excellent personal financial service for customers, in order to create greater value for the customers.
