Euromoney, the pre-eminent international financial magazine, announced the winners of its 2010 survey of the best banks. ICBC stood out in the face of fierce competition on the premise of its exceptional performance in 2009. This is the fifth time that ICBC has been voted "Best Bank in China".
Industry insiders said that over the past year ICBC continued to impress the market and peers with its outstanding performance in business operation, globalization strategy and risk management given despite the difficult conditions as a result of global financial crisis. The success was the overwhelming reason for ICBC to win the award. Euromoney said: "Analysts and observers all agree that ICBC has very stable business policy. Last year ICBC registered a 16.3% increase in net earnings and 25% jump in net fee and commission income. Revenue from investment banking rose 56.2%. This was all the more remarkable. In gaining international foothold, ICBC acquired 70% interest in Bank of East Asia (Canada), concluded the tender offer to Thailand ACL Bank, and merged Seng Heng Bank with its Macau Branch to form ICBC Macau Limited. Worthy of note is that ICBC has been successful in scaling down the balance and ratio on non-performing loans".
According to ICBC spokesperson, in 2009 ICBC maintained its momentum and achieved expected results through accelerated change and growth. While gathering pace in all businesses and sharpening the competitive edge, ICBC continued meeting the State's macro control policy in extending new loans to justified targets.
On the foundation of the solid growth in loan and deposit business, ICBC moved faster in product innovation to enhance its service capability. Just in the first six months of this year ICBC added 441 innovative products to the portfolio. ICBC's leading position remains unchallenged in all the emerging segments of the domestic market in credit card, electronic banking, investment banking, asset custody, cash management, wealth management and precious metal.
As of today, ICBC has issued more than 60 million credit cards. ICBC not only retains its first place as the largest credit card issuer in the country, but also the world's fourth largest. All in total ICBC has issued over 310 million bank cards. The fast growth of spending by bank cards was driven by the rising number of new cards.
Total value of transactions conducted using ICBC credit cards reached 290 billion yuan just in the first six months of this year, and went to over 900 billion yuan if transactions conducted using ICBC bank cards were counted. Non-performing rate of credit card at 1.42% was far below the international peers.
In electronic banking, number of customers and transaction volume followed a similar quantum. Already 54.6% of more than 110 million transactions processed every day on average by ICBC were electronic banking transactions. Revenue from investment banking continued its spiral growth after logging more than RMB 10 billion in 2009.
Over the first six months of this year ICBC generated an income of 8.3 billion yuan from investment banking service, which is now an important profit growth point. In asset custody, ICBC is the largest provider in the country offering the most complete range of custody service, most number of product categories, and having the largest scale of assets under custody.
Today, ICBC is among the top custodians in Asia with a net value of over RMB 2 trillion of assets under custody. In cash management, ICBC secured more than 150000 new customers since January to 440000+ in June this year, accounting for a jump of 54%. ICBC's result in wealth management was even more impressive.
Just in the first six months of this year the year-on-year growth of banking wealth management products was a staggering 45%. Furthermore, since the inception of the first trading house in China for precious metal in September 2009, ICBC has scored notable result in the business. In the first half of 2010, transaction volume was 60% more than last year's.
Meanwhile, ICBC scores new breakthrough in striding outside its borders. The overseas network of ICBC is expanding with new members of ICBC Malaysia, Hanoi Branch, Abu Dhabi Branch and ICBC Canada Limited. To scale up its global service, ICBC has 175 overseas branches and subsidiaries in 22 countries/regions and a global financial service platform covering all the international finance centres and China's major trading region.
More important, ICBC overseas subsidiaries manage to sustain healthy growth notwithstanding the prevailing challenges in 2009 as a result of the financial crisis. All of them, including the new branches, chalked up record profits before tax by 165% within the past 12 months. The quality of their assets remains excellent.
