OREANDA-NEWS. December 09, 2014. In recent years, by focusing on the financial service needs of small and micro enterprises in the commerce and trade sector, ICBC has been supporting the business development of small and medium-sized merchants (“SMMs”) via its innovative merchant service platform – “ICBC Merchant Friend Club”.

As at the end of the third quarter this year, the Bank set up over 3,000 such clubs in 37 regions, cities and provinces nationwide, with the total number of merchant members exceeding 15 million, over 4 million of which were added in this year, thereby establishing a nationwide service network covering all county-level areas. According to statistics, through the “ICBC Merchant Friend Club”, ICBC has provided aggregated financing of RMB 59,473 million to 46,159 small and medium-sized merchants from the year to date, which strongly supported their development.

An ICBC official said that through consistent innovation and development of exclusive products, ICBC Merchant Friend Clubs have successively launched and improved on the “ICBC Merchant Friend Card” (an exclusive service medium for members), “ICBC Merchant Friend Settlement” (an exclusive preferential settlement package for members), “ICBC Merchant Friend Financing” (an exclusive financing product for members), and “ICBC Merchant Friend Wealth Management” (an exclusive personal wealth management product for members), forming a member-only exclusive products and services system with extensive product categories and complete functions comprising fund transfer & remittance, consumption settlement, personal loan, investment & wealth management, and value-added services, which are well received among ICBC merchants. In the meantime, by continuously deepening service extension and expansion among more commodity trading markets and merchant customer groups, the Bank has actively staged “Merchant Friendship” themed events, promoted innovation of key products and services like “Merchant Friendship e-Club”, and set up new types of merchants service platforms with more diverse contents, in a bid to better meet the Club members' needs for production, operation and various financial services including consumption settlement.

The “ICBC Merchant Friend Club” is a new type of merchants service platform launched by the Bank, designed to provide a series of financial services (including exclusive settlement, financing and information consulting) that meet the customized needs of small and medium-sized merchants, especially individual businesses. The Bank has constructed a new customer relationship model through fragmentation of customer groups and innovated on products and services based on the feature that small merchants are highly concentrated in large commodity trading markets and industry clusters. By filling in the membership registration form and joining the “ICBC Merchant Friend Club”, eligible merchants can enjoy the exclusive financial products offered on the club platform to specifically meet the needs of merchant groups. They can also receive exclusive member-only financial services in terms of settlement, charging, financing convenience and returns on wealth management, which are favorable, preferential and premium.