OREANDA-NEWS. July 19, 2012. Beginning from this year, ICBC Bill Department leverages its domain expertise to provide bill financing services for small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs). Backed by sufficient credit availability, favorable prices are given to help SMEs access bank loan in every possible way. Just in the first five months of 2012, ICBC Bill Department bought bills amounting to nearly RMB 36 billion. Nearly 70% cash generated was for SMEs, reported the press-centre of ICBC.

Moreover, in the first five months of this year, ICBC Bill Department provides RMB 1.652 billion to SMEs by discounting their bills directly. While stepping up the support to real economy, the department has kept "zero percentage in accepting fraudulent bills, bad asset rate, fund loss rate and economic crime rate" for 11 consecutive years. This lays a solid foundation for the sustainable growth of ICBC bill business.

ICBC Bill Department is the first institution dedicated to bills of exchange in the country. Since its inception in 2000, the Department remains committed to support real economy especially the small and mid corporate segment. With an aim to be the bill discounting bank serving the real economy, tailored services are provided in line with the changes in market conditions and demand of SME customers. In a changing business environment, SMEs use bills for settlement instead of cash since January this year. In view of this, ICBC Bill Department launches innovative products and services at the same time stepping up the circulation of SME bills to help SMEs obtain the funding they needed in every possible way. An example, discounting of e-bills is a service for SMEs to access "short-term, frequent, urgent" loans from ICBC which further improves faster circulation of bills. During the first five months of this year, the Department has bought e-bills from SMEs totaling RMB 8.2 billion to address the funding gap of SMEs in a more efficient manner.

Besides providing finance service to SMEs through bill discounting, ICBC Bill Department also provides a full range of bill services to SMEs. Bill verification, bill custody and bill collection are examples of professional bill services offered for SMEs to manage their bills. ICBC Bill Department also organized trainings and seminars to assist financial persons from SMEs in checking 2010 new edition bills and sharing experience. This was a response to many SMEs who wished to gain more knowledge on the identification of the new edition of true bank acceptance draft and risk prevention. The seminars helped SMEs prevent risk while conveying the latest method in checking bills.