OREANDA-NEWS. September 20, 2013. Starting January this year, ICBC has been concentrating on the financial services to private enterprises and home-based business owners.

Through "ICBC Merchant Friend Club", a new platform of ICBC for serving merchants, ICBC provides a full spectrum of innovative financial products and excellent services for the development of mercantile exchanges and small-and-medium business owners in emerging economic regions in counties or suburban areas. Services have been extended to 8.74 million "ICBC Merchant Friend Club" members by the end of June this year, with 2.5 million new members this year, a 53% jump from a year earlier.

During the last few years, large mercantile exchanges including clothing, leather, hardware, building materials, aquatic products, flowers, etc., or industry clusters have been gathering steam in all corners of China, and become an important driver for the transformation and upgrade of consumer spending and coordinated economic development. Targeted at these mercantile exchanges packed with small merchants, and by way of customer segmentation, new customer relations model, tailored innovation on products and services, ICBC, through "ICBC Merchant Friend Club", offers such customized financial services as settlement, financing, consultancy to this type of customers to help them achieve stable growth and upgrade.

Thanks to its value-added products and convenient services, "ICBC Merchant Friend Club" has gained wide popularity nationwide since this new service platform was first established in Haining of Zhejiang Province on April 8, 2010. As of the end of June this year, ICBC has set up a national service network with around 3,500 "ICBC Merchant Friend Club" in 37 provinces, municipalities, autonomous regions, offering services to merchants in over 5,100 mercantile exchanges across the country.

Eligible customers are welcomed to join "ICBC Merchant Friend Club" just by filling in member registration form. Members are entitled to exclusive services designed and customized to the different needs of various merchant groups, such as discounts in settlement fees, financing facilities and wealth management profits. Meanwhile, ICBC issued "Merchant Friend Card" - an innovative product exclusively tailored to its members, and formed a highly-diversified and well-functioned member-specific products and service system, covering Merchant Friend Link, Merchant Friend Loan, Merchant Friend Wealth, Merchant Friend Road, Merchant Friend Joy that are quite popular among members. By the end of June, 2013, ICBC has issued 8.74 million "Merchant Friend Card" to meet members’ operational and consumption needs with a turnover of around RMB 10 trillion.

As more merchants join "ICBC Merchant Friend Club", ICBC starts to offer different services by dividing members into different categories and groups. For instance, for the textile merchants of different business scale, with different demands for financial services and different guarantee provided for financing in Dieshiqiao International Home Textile City in Nantong of Jiangsu Province, ICBC launched "ICBC Home Textile Link" products to meet their different financing needs, including "Home Textile Personal Link" - a loan for small home-based business owners and "Home Textile Merchant Link" - a loan for large home-based business owners. Moreover, a settlement product portfolio of "Merchant Friend Card + Bank-Merchant Link + Remittance Packages + Credit Card + Internet Banking + ICBC Messenger" is provided f
or merchants to improve their efficiency and reduce cost. The service has been well-received.