ICBC has strengthened its innovation in bank card products and services in recent years to meet multi-tiered, diversified demand for consumer finance. Statistics show that consumers spent RMB 8.8 trillion via ICBC bank cards in 2015, up 17.3% from one year ago, demonstrating the Bank’s strong support for household consumption.

ICBC has always been dedicated to embedding bank card services into the whole consumption chain to boost consumer spending while improving happiness of life. As at the end of 2015, ICBC issued 734 million bank cards, covering card use needs of the working class, college students, overseas tourists, high net worth individuals, micro and small merchants, car users and online shoppers.

To meet the robust card use demand in online shopping, ICBC has also stepped up innovative integration of “Bank Card + Internet” to launch a wide array of distinctive bank card products and services well received among consumers. For example, ICBC introduced the ICBC mobile bank card product to mobile Internet users who are active consumers. ICBC is one of China’s first banks to support Apple Pay and Samsung Pay applications. With diverse mobile bank card products, ICBC provides users with experience of more secure and convenient mobile payment. To meet integrated online and offline card use demands of customers, ICBC introduced the Internet service platform ICBC E-life and Merchants’ Home to provide credit card holders with services such as merchant search, positioning/navigation and group buy discount and offer merchants interactive services including publication of special offerings, check of bank statements and liaison with account managers. The two platforms are open to merchants and customers inside and outside ICBC,  benefiting both customers and merchants. Currently 190,000 merchants are on the ICBC E-life platform. As to card-based payment for online shopping, ICBC has innovatively launched online POS to eliminate the barrier for non-ICBC bank cards to access the e-commerce platform, enabling “access at one point, usable across the entire network” by merchants and helping customers to shop online with cards issued by different banks.