OREANDA-NEWS. February 06, 2014. Based on the demand for financial services from the small-and-micro enterprises (SMEs) doing trading business, ICBC optimized its creative service platform "ICBC Merchant Friend Club" in 2013 to better support the growth of small-and-medium merchants with innovative financial products and improved business model.

 As of end of 2013, ICBC has set up over 3500 Merchant Friend clubs in 37 provinces/cities, providing services to over 11 million clients, including 4.8 million new members added in 2013, representing a gain of 77% over the previous year with wider coverage and service range.

As China's private sector boomed in recent years, the demand for financial services from private businesses and the self-employed has become increasingly diversified. Particularly rapid growth is seen in large merchandise marts (clothing, leather, hardware, building materials, aquatic products and flowers) or industry clusters, which has driven market, consumption and employment. As such marts are dominated by small-and-medium merchants, by conducting customer breakdown and building new customer relationship with targeted product innovation, ICBC has developed customized financial services such as dedicated settlement, loan and information inquiry to boost their solid growth and upgrade.

As members expanded, ICBC has continued to strengthen customer segmentation and service differentiation to meet demands from different types of customers. Dieshiqiao International Home Textile City, a textile market in Jiangsu's Nantong featuring merchants with different business scales and revenue sources, has different requirements for financial service and different collaterals for financing purpose. Given such characteristics, ICBC designed various products such as "Home Textile Personal Loan" and "Home Textile Merchant Loan" for different merchants. Regarding settlement demand, ICBC launched well-received portfolio comprising Merchant Friend Card, Bank-Merchant Link, Remittance Package, Credit Card, Internet Banking and ICBC Messenger for merchants to settle trades faster at lower costs.

An ICBC official said, eligible customers may join "ICBC Merchant Friend Club" just by filling in member registration form. Members are entitled to exclusive financial products designed for different needs of the merchant groups, and dedicated financial services with privilege in settlement charge, financing and wealth management yields. ICBC has launched a range of innovative products and services designed for Merchant Friend Club members, including "Merchant Friend Card" exclusively issued to members, "Merchant Friend Link" (settlement package), "Merchant Friend Loan", "Merchant Friend Wealth" (personal wealth management product). These exclusive products and services have been well received by members with rich functions covering transfer/remittance, settlement, personal loan, wealth management and value-added services. ICBC has issued 11.04 million "Merchant Friend Cards" as of end of December, 2013, generating over RMB 10 trillion in transactions and catering to members’ requirement for settlement in production, operation and consumption.