Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has established a specialized agency to provide financial services for small enterprises. According to the ICBC’s Qingdao branch official no ‘limitation’ would be set for small enterprises’ loan applications; as long as the enterprise needing loans has met the qualifications and the bank will try to satisfy its demand to the most extent.
In order to serve small and medium-sized enterprises and to meet their needs for short-termed, frequent and urgent loans, ICBC has formed specialized systems of client rating, credit granting and examination and approval and operation processes. Moreover, ICBC has launched varied mortgage guarantee schemes including guarantee by a natural person, pledge of accounts receivable, pledge of inventory and other properties, pledge of invisible capital, loan warranty insurance, and small and medium-sized enterprises unified insurance.
Meanwhile, ICBC has taken the initiative to offer comprehensive financial services covering loan-granting, trade financing, bill services, settlement service, investment banking, financial consultancy, e-banking and small and medium-sized enterprises bond financing; and to introduce such customized financial solutions as ‘loan for adaptation and rent of commercial used housing’, ‘financing solution for suppliers of large-scale supermarkets’, ‘steel trade financing solution’, ‘oil trade financing solution’, ‘gold trade financing solution’, ‘financing service under the item of supervision on automobile license’ and ‘patent pledge loan’, which have well met small and medium-sized enterprises’ needs.
The bank has claimed that by the end of June 2009, the balance of loans to small and medium-sized enterprises had reached nearly RMB 2.3 trillion. From January to June, ICBC witnessed an increase of RMB 477.3 billion in its loans to small and medium-sized enterprises, a rise of 26%, higher than the growth rate of loans to companies in the same period. At present, loans to small and medium-sized enterprises take up about 50% of all loans ICBC has granted to companies.
The board director of ICBC, Jiang Jianqing said that, based on risk control, ICBC would further improve its financial services for small and medium-sized enterprises and support their development.
