Nov 28 - A news reporter walked into the ICBC outlet at the Beijing Xidan Joycity and was welcomed by the duty manager with a smile and a leaflet. Yet the leaflet this time is different from the former product leaflet. The leaflet to the news reporter talks about the Banking Public Education Service Day ("Service Day"), covering financial knowledge and tips on preventing frauds and risks.
The news reporter also noticed the Service Day non-commercial advertisement running on the outlet's LCD TV. The outlet manager told the reporter that all ICBC outlets in Beijing started the program today as scheduled by the China Banking Regulatory Commission.
In fact, not only in Beijing, ICBC made full preparation and started the Service Day program in all ICBC branches nationwide since its kickoff in 2010, as required by the China Banking Regulatory Commission. ICBC takes this as an opportunity to hold successive ICBC's banking education programs to the public.
On the day of Nov 28, ICBC Senior Executive Vice President Luo Xi attended the ceremony held in Beijing for the kickoff of the Banking Public Education Service Day, and joined the event at the Beijing Xidan Culture Square. While talking to the ordinary folks, he shared the financial knowledge to increase their awareness to avoid fraud and financial risk.
ICBC outlets across the country started the Service Day with promotional banners, posters in the outlets or playing non-commercial advertisements. A lot of ICBC outlets have special corners reserved for the Service Day and assigned staffs to distribute promotional leaflets and answer questions from customers.
ICBC held public education program not only in the outlets, but in schools, companies and communities. Focusing on the topic of public education service, ICBC chose the experienced staffs to hold question-and-answer session "face to face" aiming at educating the pubic on banking services. ICBC "Service Day" locations were seen in many cities' busy downtown.
ICBC staffs distributed promotional leaflets to people walking by, answered any question, presented bank services on personal banking, electronic banking and credit card, demonstrated the use of self-service devices, tips in avoiding ATM scam, telecom and internet banking fraud, credit card fraud, the knowledge in identifying counterfeit money and suggested customers to stay away from illicit fund raising.
"Customers First, Services Foremost" is the fundamental principle for current commercial banks to survive, said an executive with the ICBC. ICBC is an active proponent of the "Customer Focus" philosophy. Educating the public on banking services and protecting the rights and interests of consumers are always among the top priorities.
To this end, over the last few years ICBC has initiated numerous programs to educate the public on financial services, in the form of financial exhibitions, expert classes, seminars on financial knowledge, media columns or online forums. In 2008, 7.6 million consumers (in terms of person-time) attended 15000+ wealth management classes and seminars with professionals hosted by ICBC banking units at all levels.
ICBC started the "Walk a Million Mile Investment and Wealth Management" program beginning from 2009 and organized 19000 sessions to provide education to the public on investment and wealth management. A million of free Guide to Smart Investment was sent out to customers. Besides, onsite sessions with the experts were held for everybody to learn about investment and wealth management, financial services and the risk involved, a knowledge that could help all the general folks.
This year, ICBC also held the "Self-Service Banking Public Education Exhibition" with an aim to spread the knowledge on self-service banking. Meanwhile, in light of the recent years of increasing frauds and theft by outlaws that infringe the rights and interests of the banking service users, announcement at the website, notices at the outlets, SMS alerts and warnings in self-service devices were various options taken by ICBC to educate the consumers on the risks and help them to increase their awareness and capability to avoid the risks.
The ICBC executive said that education to the public on banking services addressing the key issues of the consumers is a compelling responsibility and obligation of commercial banks, also fundamental for the banks to lift up their brand images and realize sustainable development. In the next step of educating the public on banking services, ICBC will continue as before in planning long-effective system, to actively participate in all types of such events and to host various types of activities with abundant contents.
