ICBC Bill Department optimizes business portfolio

The ICBC Bill Department registered a transaction turnover of more than US$132.5 billion and US$158 million in profit.

Profit contribution per person was over US$609.5 thousand. ICBC Bill Department stands at the very front of the China's bill market by chalking up a good record of zero percentage in accepting fraudulent bills, bad asset rate, fund loss rate and economic crime rate.

Being the first organization in the country dedicated to bill business, ICBC Bill Department has achieved high-quality growth in bill assets and stable business performance for a decade since its inception in 2000.

Since 2010, ICBC Bill Department has adjusted the business strategy in line with the changes in external market conditions, focusing on the optimizations of business portfolio, R&D and innovation of new products. The first step was to concentrate on resources consolidation, total quantity control, credit limit matching and cross-regional operation to enhance circulation of bills inside ICBC.

Various business portfolios were adopted to achieve fast turnover of bills and improve the profitability of bill business in all branches.

The Department also looked for new profit growth point by moving aggressively on bill discounting, electronic bill, and the buying back of bill for sale. In 2010, ICBC Bill Department has discounted bills to a total of US$732.8 million, a year-on-year growth of nearly 50 per cent. ICBC is a leading player in electronic bill business, starting from nothing to a transaction turnover totaling US$3.79 billion. In terms of the product innovation, ICBC Bill Department achieved breakthrough in emerging businesses such as wealth management on bill, "Bill Winner" integrated product, acceptance of low-risk bills.

Worthy of note was that, ICBC Bill Department also made new progress in risk management in 2010. The Department spent great efforts in the following: business management rules, sampling criteria of risk testing material, classification on the quality of bill assets into 9 levels, prediction and management of asset quality, use of online process review of ISO document and ISO implementation, internal/external control system. The above measures ensure the effective risk control on bill assets, rules and policies related to bill business are in place for the supervision, management and guidance.

The next move of ICBC is to continue the effort on bill business leveraging its advantages on system and structure, said an executive with ICBC, the bank strives to become the market maker in bill market. To loom large the bill business, ICBC has a couple of initiatives planned to set up a multidivisional structure, build the brand of "ICBC Bills" in China's bill market and establish itself as an integrated service provider.