OREANDA-NEWS. March 31, 2011. The "Accrual Gold" service of ICBC, jointly launched with the World Gold Council in early this year has been warmly received by many investors because of its low risk and stable income, as related by the Bank today. In less than three months 35,000 customers sign up the ICBC "Accrual Gold" service and 233, 000 grams of gold have been accrued, reported the press-centre of ICBC.

"Accrual Gold" is an upgrade product of "Ruyi Gold Accrual" launched by ICBC last year, a more competitive product than "Ruyi Gold Accrual" through more innovation. Worthy of note is that, the "Accrual Gold" is the only financial product currently available in domestic market for customers to invest gold at daily average price. The advantage is to spread the investment cost evenly and effectively, and to the greatest extent, avoid the risk arising from the fluctuation of gold price. Investors just only open an "Accrual Gold" account in ICBC and sign the agreement for periodic accrual. Every month a sum is deducted. ICBC automatically allocates the investment amount of the customers on average every day and buys corresponding quantity of gold according to the gold price quoted on the day. Since the amount invested each time is fixed, the actual grams of gold bought vary according to the change in gold price. Hence, buying gold under a fixed amount in long periods can spread evenly the investment cost, and reduce the risk involved due to the fluctuation in gold price. Once a certain quantity of gold has been accrued, investors have the options to redeem the gold and get cash back, or redeem the accrued gold for physical precious metal at the ICBC gold-selling outlets.

The original intention of "Accrual Gold" is to ride along the gold market trends in recent years and cater for all customers to buy gold in small quantity at low risk, to preserve and add value on the assets, said experts of the World Gold Council. Meanwhile, the experience of Japan in more than a decade on the running of gold accrual plan is taken as reference to design the "Accrual Gold" service, with full consideration on the demand from domestic customers. At present, the starting investment amount of ICBC's "Accrual Gold" service is only RMB 200 a month, very suitable for retail investors who can only afford small amount for long-term, stable investments, yet cannot afford the time and lack of experience to judge the market.

According to the analysis by investment professional, the international gold price has fluctuated very much recently. Many investors face the dilemma: do not wish to miss the opportunity but worry about the risk. ICBC's "Accrual Gold" is a product that addresses the dilemma well. The risk from price fluctuation can be effectively circumvented through the scientific operation mechanism of the service, leading to effective risk diversification on personal asset allocation for the portfolio investment.

An executive with ICBC said, the next move of ICBC is to design and launch more innovative products on precious metal in line with the market changes and customer requirement. More functions will be included. The team of ICBC professional staff will help customers make use of the best opportunity in order to better serve their needs to invest in precious metal.