OREANDA-NEWS. July 05, 2011. Beginning from this year, ICBC is stepping up its efforts to extend credit to small-and-medium enterprises and innovation of financial products designed for the individual industrial and commercial households in a bid to improve the service standard. Recently, ICBC rolled out the pilot service of personal petty loans to meet their funding needs, providing small RMB loans for their short-term working capital. The service was warmly received. As of today, ICBC has a balance of over RMB 2.6 billion of personal petty loans to individual industrial and commercial household, reported the press-centre of ICBC.

Statistics from All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce shows that there are over 34 million individual industrial and commercial households in China. Their registered capital has surpassed RMB 1.3 trillion. They play a pivotal role in boosting economy development and providing job opportunities for the urban mass. In a move to strengthen and improve the financial services for individual industrial and commercial households, ICBC launched the personal petty loans according to their business needs. The loan products have many features: many ways to guarantee, low threshold and flexible repayment option.

At this stage, ICBC's personal petty loans are mainly for individual industrial and commercial households in the industrial clusters with a considerable business scale as well as good potential, said an executive with ICBC. They may be business owners in small commodity wholesale market, building and steel material wholesale market, vegetables and fruits wholesale market, logistics park, cultural and creative industry base or shopping streets, having fixed business premises and continuous, stable income. In general, individual industrial and commercial households do not have assets for mortgage or pledge. In the case of ICBC personal petty loans, they can be on credit or guarantee, no mortgage or pledge is needed.

ICBC personal petty loans can be guaranteed by natural persons, joint-guaranteed by business owners or by guarantee companies. Meanwhile, the loans are generally within 6-month tenure, up to a year to align with the business activities and working capital of individual industrial and commercial households. The maximum loan amount for one account is RMB 500,000. Besides, customer can choose a repayment method well-suited to its own cash positions: repayment of principal and interest equally every month, repayment of principal equally every month, repayment of principle and payment of interest every week, payment of interest every month and repayment of principal one time, or "Repay Anytime" which is much flexible.