As at the end of 2016, the balance of ICBC’s internet financing exceeded RMB 620 billion, with a substantial increase of more than 20% over the previous year and an excellent level of asset quality, which further consolidates ICBC’s market position as the largest internet financing bank in China.

According to an official of ICBC Internet Financing Center, the internet financing is essentially aimed to use internet channels and approaches to reduce information asymmetry and change traditional means of customer risk identification relying on financial statements and collateral information, reducing the threshold of bank financing and improving customer experience of financing service. Since its establishment in September 2015, ICBC Internet Financing Center has been developing tailored online financing products by using big data to continuously enhance the value of financial services and provide new drive to improve quality and efficiency of real economy.

Currently ICBC’s internet financing business is divided into ICBC Fast Loan and ICBC Micro Loan. ICBC Fast Loan establishes an online channel for transaction of traditional financing products by changing the way of interaction between customers and banks. Thanks to higher efficiency of business processing, the bank has saved significant manpower and time cost, allowing benefits to customers and lower financing costs. ICBC Micro Loan is characterized by different transaction scenarios, which focus on the control of overall default rate through big data analysis and multi-dimensional cross-verification of information, which greatly reduces the entry threshold for customers. It aims to benefit customers with no direct access to financing from banks.

At the product level, ICBC has launched three major internet financing product lines, including standardized financing, internet supply chain financing and e-commerce platform micro loan, to meet the distinctive needs of different types of customers. The standardized financing features “Internet + loan” and transfers part or all of the financing procedures to online channels to change customers’ financing habits and realize internet-based transformation of traditional financing business. For example, the Online Revolving Loan, ICBC’s flagship product, has provided financing of nearly RMB 2 trillion to around 90,000 small and micro-sized customers.

Regarding the internet supply chain financing, ICBC has endeavored to explore the characteristics of supplies chains of branded cars, famous liquor, modern equipment manufacturing, health care and modern agriculture by leveraging its advantages in customer base and group-wide network. Based on the financing needs of suppliers, core enterprises, distributors and individual customers along the whole industry chain, a brand new supply chain financing mode is launched, through which the Bank has provided customized online supply chain financing service solutions to a series of giants in various industries, such as Huawei, Mengniu, Baosteel, Meihua and Guangqi Honda. Also, based on the trade flow, information flow and capital flow generated by the ICBC Mall, ICBC has realized automatic review and approval of the supply chain financing in the system and provided financing support to small and micro-sized vendors of large-scale central government-controlled enterprises.

As to the e-commerce platform micro loan, ICBC has been actively seeking cooperation with e-commerce platforms to launch a series of e-commerce platform merchant financing business including China National Cotton Exchange and the commodity exchange platform of TEWOO by introducing the fourth party monitoring technology and connecting with transaction market system.