OREANDA-NEWS. December 16, 2014. Under the deployment of PBOC, ICBC has further accelerated the promotion and popularization of chip cards in 2014.As at the end of August, 2014, the number of chip cards of all types issued by the Bank reached 192 million, representing an increase of 53% or 67 million over the end of last year. In the first eight months, ICBC chip card holders completed consumption of over RMB1.89 trillion, which accounted for over 40% of the total completed by all types of bank cards of ICBC.

According to an ICBC official, compared with the traditional magnetic-stripe cards, chip cards have advantages in security, convenience and broad industry applications, and become a future trend of financial consumption. Since the first half of the year, the Bank has stopped issuing new debit cards with magnetic stripes, but the existing magnetic-stripe cards still remain in use. If customers holding debit cards with magnetic stripes want to replace them with chip cards, they can apply at designated outlets with valid ID card and the original debit card. For the convenience of customers, ICBC has optimized the debit card replacement by allowing retention of original card number. Currently, around 90% of its debit cards can be replaced without changing card number.

Regarding chip card application, the Bank has continued to innovate product and business by focusing on customer demand in the age of card-swiping consumption, boosting social benefits and the upgrading of household consumption. So far, ICBC's chip cards have been widely applied to various sectors including transport, aviation, energy, medicals, commerce, tourism, telecommunication, schools, enterprises, social security and urban all-in-one-card system. For example, the Bank’s Global Travel All-Currency Chip Credit Cards users are unconditionally exempted from currency conversion fee, regardless of type of currency. In addition, the Bank has launched medicare cards with a number of hospitals nationwide, integrating medical and financial service functions such as registration, payment, diagnosis and treatment, top-up and refund, and facilitating cardholders to see doctors and register at hospitals.