OREANDA-NEWS. August 09, 2011. Since January this year, ICBC leverages its loan product offering and IT expertise to roll out online loan service via Internet Banking in order to better align with the diversified and individual requirement of small enterprises to apply for ICBC loans. ICBC's balance of "Online Loan Link", a major online loan product of ICBC targeted at small enterprises, surged 65% or RMB 58.2 billion from the beginning of the year to RMB 147.5 billion by the end of the first half of this year. Number of customers went beyond 24,000, 1.5 times as much as in the beginning of the year, reported the press-centre of ICBC.

"Online Loan Link" is an ICBC service for small business customers to apply for revolving loan online by themselves, as related by an executive with ICBC. To apply, small enterprises only need to sign the revolving loan contract with ICBC one time. After that, they can draw or repay loan through Internet Banking during the validity period of the contract. All processing is done automatically by the system. Loan amount is credited into account in real-time. Borrowers can apply, draw or repay loans online without going to the bank, and use the loan revolvingly up to a period of two years. "Online Loan Link" is a product where online loans are "available anytime, anywhere, borrowed and repaid whenever", without restriction on where and when. The service has been warmly welcomed by the small business customers since it allows them to obtain financing "in a short time, in a frequent and quick fashion".

"Online Loan Link" also carries other features: credit facility in full amount, highly efficient, apply freely, no withdrawal, no interest calculated. Small enterprises can borrow or repay loans depending on their peak/weak seasons, which means large savings in borrowing cost and better cater to their intermittent and periodic demand of funds. Take the current benchmark interest rate of 1-year liquidity loan, if a loan of RMB 10 million can save 60 days of service period in a year, nearly RMB 110,000 of borrowing cost can be saved. To a small enterprise, this is not a small sum of money.

Besides "Online Loan Link", ICBC also launches other new online finance products such as "Easy Finance Link", e-supply chain finance designed for small enterprises, in the wake of the progress of nowadays corporate e-commerce and network trade. "Easy Finance Link", is a new type of loan available to micro enterprises and individual industrial and commercial households running business on the third-party e-commerce platforms. The online merchants, as long as they have normal business and stable income, are welcomed to apply for loans via the third party e-commerce platforms or ICBC Internet Banking. ICBC system will automatically process the information given and determine the credit line based on the amount borrowed, the source and reliability of repayment. "Easy Finance Link" enables borrowers to sign loan contracts online, the first such service in the banking sector. Besides, all procedures starting from loan application to review and approval, withdrawal and repayment can be completed online, simpler and easier. Extending loans online becomes automatic and very convenient.

Data shows that China's e-commerce turnover has reached RMB 3.2 trillion during the first six months of this year. In other words, online loan service is an inevitable choice for banks to act first and grasp the opportunity. In the next step, ICBC will continue to look at the best delivery of online financial services by dint of its strong technological capabilities. In a bid to expand the offering of small business financial services, more innovative loan products will be launched to meet the funding gap of small enterprises for their e-commerce or online trade activities.