OREANDA-NEWS. May 17, 2012. Agricultural Bank of China limited (ABC) held a working conference on the promotion of its outlet transformation project, and the promotion work started off.
Mr. Cai Huaxiang, Vice President of ABC, said that it was imperative to promote the outlet transformation project for turning ABC into a "domestically first-class retail bank", for solidifying the development foundation of retail banking, and for increasing the outlets' overall core competitiveness, reported the press-centre of ABC. 

ABC will earnestly strengthen vertical linkage and inter-department collaboration, develop special transformation teams, deepen and complete the outlet transformation project. It aims at establishing 300 transformation-sample outlets during the first half of 2012, and launching the transformation in 1000 wealth management centers during the second half of 2012, 5000 quality outlets by 2013 and all the outlets by the end of 2015. ABC hopes to enhance the overall marketing and service capacities, value creation capacities, core competitiveness and sustainable development capacities of its outlets.

It is learned that ABC started to stage the strategic transformation of retail banking since the beginning of 2009. It hired IBM to provide consultation for its outlets transformation. It has developed a forward-looking outlet transformation plan that meets the conditions of ABC after diagnostic analysis, classified design and pilot test. While focusing on outlet transformation, it systematically advanced outlet standardization, introduction of standard and civilized services, marketing system building, business procedure optimization and product innovation. The project has greatly invigorated ABC's retail banking and led it to rapid development.
From 2009 to 2011, ABC completed its network layout planning that covered key urban branches,tier-two urban branches and key county sub-branches.

A VIP marketing and service platform has been established that integrates private banking, wealth management center and VIP wealth management room. It has integrated such marketing and service channels as outlets, online banking, self-service banking and telephone banking, and scored remarkable results in the retail banking reform. It has realized interactive marketing and effectively enhanced its marketing and service capacities of retail banking. In addition to the rapid development of the other businesses, ABC has seen a greatly increased comprehensive contribution of retail banking and completed the objectives of the first-phase retail banking reform.