OREANDA-NEWS.  September 19, 2013. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC announced launching Western Union account based money transfers service.

The Chinese customers can direct any Western Union international money transfer into their ICBC online banking accounts sent from over 200 countries and territories. Mr. Jiang Jianqing, Chairman of ICBC, joined Mr. Hikmet Ersek President and CEO of Western Union, in Dalian, China to officiate at a symbolic launch of this service.

As a pilot launch, the service is operational in Beijing and Fujian in September. Once the sender sends the money through oversea Western Union locations and tells the receiver the transaction code (MTCN), the receiver can logon to Industrial and Commercial Bank of China website and log into Personal Online Banking, click "Money Transfer", choose "Western Union", and then choose "Receive Western Union Money Transfer", fill in the payout currency and expected payout amount, and enter MTCN, the money will be deposited into receiver’s account directly. It is convenient for customer to receive the money of US Dollar at home 24 hours a day, seven days a week. ICBC will rollout this service nationally soon.

Mr. Jiang Jianqing, Chairman of ICBC, pointed out that this cooperation integrated and combined ICBC's customer base, IT strength, and unparalleled on-line banking portal in China with Western Union’s extensive global network,and gave our customers the greatest advantage of financial choice and convenience.

"Formalizing Western Union's Account Based Money Transfers with the world's largest bank as well as giving more than 150 million on-line banked ICBC customers the choice to transfer funds anytime and anywhere – is a phenomenal achievement for both our companies and we congratulate ICBC," said Mr. Ersek, "Our drive to innovate and introduce new channels to move money into China - the second largest remittance receiver in the world - is forged by a single unifying purpose of both our organizations and that is to continually improve choice and convenience to customers," he said.