In recent years, ICBC places top priority to deliver more innovative financial services to micro-and-small enterprises (MSEs) as one way to support the real economy. One focus is to deal with MSEs’ difficulty of accessing bank loans. ICBC's total outstanding MSE loans stood at RMB 1.82 trillion at the end of June, 2013, representing 20.7% of all ICBC loans in the same period, in which those under RMB 30 million for a single borrower increased from RMB 143.6 billion at the end of 2005 to RMB 1.14 trillion as of the end of June, 2013, an average annual growth rate of 31.81% and 17.4 percentage points higher than average growth rate of any other loan in the same period.

An ICBC executive said, ICBC has a separate system to serve MSEs. Internal management and operational mechanism are also constantly improved to meet the funding needs of MSEs. In terms of organizational construction, the ICBC set up a financial and marketing management department specially for MSEs at the Head Office and tier-1 branches, and "small business financial centers", "sub-centers" and "MSE-specific outlets" in tier-2 branches or sub-branches. As of today, over 60% of ICBC's MSE loans have been provided by 1,443 special financial organizations serving MSEs. With regards to team-building, ICBC has established a team of over 15,000 well-trained MSE customer managers with related qualifications and certificates, thus laying a solid talent foundation for ICBC’s future development.

In terms of allocation of credit resources, ICBC allocates a special credit pool for the MSEs to ensure their business development. In 2013, ICBC has reserved RMB 120 billion credit for the MSEs with single financing limit below RMB 30 million and a growth higher than the average rate of other ICBC credit in the same period. As to performance evaluation and incentive scheme, ICBC integrates MSE financial services into operational evaluation of branches/sub-branches and makes number of new MSE customers as a key indicator in incentive scheme. The bank also takes measures to monitor and accelerate the development of MSE financial services in branches/sub-branches by reducing the economic capital occupied by MSE loans and increasing risk tolerance.

To provide more comprehensive and exclusive financial services to MSEs, ICBC launched a wide range of MSE-specific loan products over the past few years, which are well-received by MSEs. Among these products include working capital loan, revolving loan and "Small Convenient Loan" for MSEs’ short-term funding needs; standard plant mortgage loan, equipment mortgage loan and business property loan for MSEs’ mid- to long-term funding needs; personal business loan, personal operation loan and individual mortgage loan for commercial property for MSE and home-based business owners. ICBC also offered "e-Revolving Loan" by combining conventional loan service with internet technology, through which customers can apply, withdraw and repay loans online. ICBC also guaranteed sufficient credit, credit scale and real-time transfer. Once contract is signed, borrower can complete the whole process of credit application, withdrawal and repayment during the effective period of the contract without leaving your home or office. Apart from its capability to meet the "short, frequent, urgent" funding needs, "e-Revolving Loan" is also a highly efficient self-help product with no interest incurred as long as no withdrawal is made, enabling MSEs to borrow and repay loans according to their actual conditions in peak or low seasons. This translates to cheaper borrowing cost for MSEs since their demand for working capital is intermittent and periodic. In addition to its convenience, the product also increases fund-using efficiency, and reduce borrowing cost. Since the introduction of "e-Revolving Loan", a total of 48,000 MSEs have been granted over RMB 920 billion loan via this product.

Given it is difficult for MSEs to provide guarantee for their loans, ICBC offers services such as factoring, product financing and order financing, backed by the supply chain formed by MSEs with their customers in the upstream and downstream, as well as the creditability of their counterparties and the value of their products. Since January this year, ICBC offers supply chain financing solutions to more than 1,300 large companies and adds over 10,000 MSEs in the upstream and downstream to ICBC's customer base, achieving a pull effect of 1:8. For top customers in special markets and industrial clusters, ICBC takes such measures as third-party credit enhancement and combined guarantees to help MSEs get out of the trouble of capital shortage which is caused by their blocked access to bank loans owing to short of collaterals.