OREANDA-NEWS. January 22, 2013. During the New Year holiday this year, busy passengers traveling between Guangzhou and Shenzhen now find it easy to buy train tickets. Instead of queuing up at the ticketing hall packed with people, all it needs is to "clap" a small card at the tollgate, buy and pay the ticket and get on the train, reported the press-centre of ICBC.

This small magic card, a chip credit card launched by ICBC for Guangzhou-Shenzhen Railway using cutting-edge contactless chip technology, combines financial service with railway ticketing for travelers to buy train tickets fast and easily. Nowadays, the continuous innovation in using bank card for payment let people prefer bank cards to cash, bank cards are the first choice for daily spends.

In 2012, the total amount spent by ICBC cardholders was over RMB 4 trillion, up 30% from a year ago to RMB 4.13 trillion. In terms of cardholder expenditure volume, ICBC bank cards held on the top spot in domestic league table. Out of which, RMB 872.4 billion has been spent by ICBC chip cards, representing a surge of 163% over the previous year and driving the robust growth of using bank card for payments.

In China, nearly 3.5 billion bank cards have been issued. Around 46% retail spends were paid by bank cards and already over 50% in large cities like Beijing, Shanghai, showing the ubiquitous use of bank cards. The popularity of payment using bank card not only benefits in saving the transaction cost of payment system, but creates a better payment environment for cardholders. Credit card facilitates spending since it allows credit, cardholders tend to actually spend if given an opportunity, driving the consumer growth in the end.

To a commercial bank, due to the prevalence of bank cards, the improvements in acceptance of bank cards and service level are critical to the growth of cardholder expenditure. In recent years, ICBC has taken various measures to respond to the needs of cardholders. The launch of installment payment service, together with wider acceptance and a full spectrum of card functions and excellent services are aimed to increase the quality, efficiency and adaptability of ICBC bank card. As a result, there has been an increasing popularity of ICBC credit cards for shopping and payments.

In 2012, ICBC launched promotion to encourage the use of ICBC credit cards for payments by installments. Besides partnering with car manufacturers, ICBC worked with home appliance shops, digital products suppliers, cultural and education companies to attract consumers in China to buy large consumer products and use ICBC credit cards to pay by installment. ICBC also launched Easy Loan Card to better serve the salaried customers. Using the benchmark interest rate of personal consumer loan of the same term as reference, the fee rate of installment payment by Easy Loan Card is lower than that of current credit cards available in the market. As a result, young cardholders and low-income cardholders are more willing to use Easy Loan Card. At the end of 2012, ICBC's total credit card loans was RMB 242.6 billion, a 36% increase from the beginning of the year. Total outstanding installment payment loans jumped 36.6% from the beginning of 2012 to RMB 144.6 billion at the end of the year.

In card acceptance environment, ICBC spent great efforts in improving the conditions for ICBC chip cards to be widely accepted. So far the Bank has upgraded the services at the counter and self-service devices for the acceptance of chip cards. Moreover, ICBC continues to install new bank card terminals and device and has 950,000 POS as of end of 2012. In 2012, ICBC installed more POS in commercial hubs and busy downtown like "City Street", "Cultural Street", "Food Street" , for acceptance of payments by ICBC cards. Besides, ICBC gathers its pace in signing up merchants, up to 650,000 merchants at the end of 2012, covering every aspect of daily living expenses of cardholders, as well as merchants selling branded merchandize to discerning cardholders with diversified needs.

In product innovation, last year ICBC rolled out QuickPay card, multi-currency cards to meet the market demand and consumer spending habit. The full spectrum of bank card products coming with unique functions and services are tailored to better meet the individual preferences of different customers. In particular, ICBC joined force with industry partners to promote the use of chip cards in different areas - transportation management, railways ticketing, highway toll, commercial co-branded, social security/medical insurance,property management, entertainment and restaurant. Different types of chip cards were also launched for small contactless payments, or for cardholders to pay highway toll (ETC), e-points and gate pass. Cardholders not only use chip card to pay but enjoy many value-added services in different areas: – airlines, railway, public transport, highway toll, social security.

In service improvement, in recent years ICBC has rolled out highly efficient, fast and convenient services to make Credit Card Phone Center into a main service channel. The Center has created a new record by attending over 90% incoming calls within 20 seconds for 25 months in a row, despite the 50% increase of incoming calls. In 2012, the rate jumped to a record level of 97%. The Credit Card Phone Center is running steady by attending all calls every day in different periods.