The first Chinese Financial Innovation, Production, Learning and Research Alliance was formally established in Beijing recently. The Alliance was initiated by ICBC, and its current members include many famous domestic and foreign think tanks, colleges and universities, as well as high-tech enterprises, such as China Center for International Economic Exchanges, Institute of Finance and Banking of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Central University of Finance and Economics, University of International Business and Economics, China E-Commerce Association, China UnionPay, IBM, Microsoft, and UFIDA. Insiders point out that, the establishment of the Financial Innovation, Production, Learning and Research Alliance builds up a communication and cooperation platform of financial product innovation between commercial banks and other social research resources such as think tanks, and for that matter, the Alliance will play a significant role in enhancing the research and self-innovation capacity of the financial products of Chinese commercial banks.

According to the production, learning and research cooperation agreement that ICBC signed with members of the Alliance, all the concerned parties will collaborate in terms of communication on innovation information of financial products, joint research, themed activities and resource sharing, hence striving to design new financial products of high added value and independent intellectual property right in order to better meet market demands and fundamentally elevate the product innovation and research capacity of the Chinese finance industry. At the present, ICBC has launched a series of partnership programs with these production, learning and research institutes in the fields of e-payment, bank financing, and bank card.

An ICBC official who is responsible introduced that, the bank regards the acceleration of product innovation as an important measure for enhancing customer satisfaction, market competitiveness and the capacity for sustainable development. Along with ICBC's efforts in continuously expanding the investment in independent R&D to provide customers with creative financial products, the bank now emerges as the top Chinese commercial bank in terms of the number of innovative products and innovation capacity. In the process of product innovation, ICBC, based on the actual need in the market, has launched a number of key products of great market potential and remarkable market competitiveness through the introduction, research, and development of new products as well as designing product combinations that cater to customers' comprehensive needs. Merely during the first half of 2009 ICBC launched 320 new financial products, which means the total of its financial products has reached 2375, up 15% compared to the end of last year. Many of the new products and product platforms have shown strong market competitiveness and reaped favorable customer evaluation, such as the online financial software of Corporate Internet Banking, the "Link Express" Ultra-Short Financial Product, Collection Manager, Personal Internet Banking (VIP), Bank-bank Link, capital supervision and deposit custody, global cash management, etc.

In terms of cultivating innovation mechanism, ICBC has also been taking initiative to explore a new and advanced product innovation management mechanism of commercial bank. In 2007, the bank established a product innovation management department under headquarters that was the first of its kind in domestic commercial banks, for the sake of exploring and introducing the up-to-date ideas of product development and design, such as product platform, customer experience, product design standardization, etc. Since 2009, ICBC has been further speeding up the establishment and perfection of its product innovation management system by setting up the product innovation departments in seven branches locating in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and other Provinces. These new department will become the centers and paragons of product R&D and innovation in the key branch areas.

ICBC's product innovation enhances its service-supply capacity, but also helps the bank to forge its unique management features, broaden revenue sources, and optimize the revenue structure. In the first half of 2009, ICBC's new businesses such as investment banking and corporate financing become the key factors contributing to profit growth. In terms of investment banking, ICBC achieved a revenue of RMB 7.143 billion, increasing 48.1%. During the growth of its investment banking business, ICBC puts a lot of efforts in developing the M&A advisory service business and actively promoting the campaign to provide enterprises with the "Financing + Consulting" comprehensive M&A service solution. In term of banking syndicate loan business, during the first half of this year ICBC accomplished a revenue of RMB 443 million from undertaking and management businesses, which has increased 58.8%. In terms of corporate financing, ICBC launched a group of new products, such as the "Link Express" Ultra-Short Financial Product of now fixed period, the 28-day Rolling Corporate Financing Product, the RMB Structural Deposit Product for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, etc, all of which effectively meet corporate customers'  financial need for their short-term idle fund.

ICBC's progress in product innovation has won wide-spread recognition from the public and the industry. In the recent "2008 Chinese Commercial Bank Competitiveness Assessment" held by The Banker magazine, the competitiveness of ICBC's products and services were ranked the first.