Millward Brown, the global brand strategy and financial consultancy organization, announced this year's "BrandZ" Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands through Financial Times (UK). Chinese brands created another historic record in the 2010 ranking by having seven of the Top 100 brands coming from China, the first time that Chinese brands overtook Japan's. The progress signals the momentum of China as a country of world brands. China financial brands achieved remarkably with 4 included this year and ICBC moved up one place from last year to the eleventh. ICBC, which grew by 15 percent in brand value to USD 43.927 billion, remained number one in the category. ICBC is now sitting comfortably as the world's No.1 financial brand.

Veterans are saying that the modern economies in the 21st century are a world of brands. International brand is a metric of the competition between the countries. One metric to measure the economic strength and international competitive edge of a country is the international brand, whether the country has any and how many. First of all, the dominant rise of national brands exemplified by ICBC is the result of China's growth influence in the world. A brand is a reflection of the core competitiveness of a company as it is the most valuable intangible asset, China national brands standing out among a plethora of international brands is telling the strong revival of the Chinese enterprises, the refulgent turn of "Created in China" instead of "Made in China". Being the largest commercial bank in China, ICBC, an important member of "Created in China" has succeeded in making "ICBC" a brand of global phenomenon by turning from a local bank to the world's largest commercial bank by market value, profitability and customer deposit.

Brand of Substantial Strength

Strength wields influence. ICBC, the largest commercial bank in the country, all the while garners widespread attention from the world on its substantial strength. By the end of March 2010, ICBC scored a total asset of RMB 12.5 trillion, the largest Chinese enterprise in terms of asset scale. ICBC is the world's fifth biggest company in this year's list of the top 2000 public companies in the world announced by Forbes magazine earlier. ICBC is the first mainland firm enters Top Ten in Forbes Global 2000 list. ICBC chalks up a deposit balance of over RMB 10 trillion as of the end of March 2010, the No. 1 commercial bank in the world in terms of deposit volume.

While standing tall in the world, ICBC retains the house to beat in most of the banking areas. At the end of March 2010, ICBC issued nearly 300 million bank cards, where credit cards were almost 55 million. Today, ICBC not only consolidates its dominance as the largest credit card issuer in the country but also the fourth largest in the world. For the first quarter ending March 2010, a turnover of RMB 64.2 trillion transactions was processed through Electronic Banking. ICBC Electronic Banking ranks No. 1 in China by having 81.07 million Personal Internet Banking customers and 2.05 million companies using Corporate Internet Banking. ICBC is the largest asset custody bank in the country with nearly RMB 1.9 trillion of assets under custody. ICBC also continues its leadership across many segments: investment banking, annuity management, cash management and RMB settlement.

"ICBC" the brand begins to make its mark as the bank is rising beyond the limit. The simultaneous placement of A+H in Shanghai and Hong Kong in 2006, coined as the "Century Offering", was the largest IPO in the world ever. "ICBC" story is creating a stir in the world. All these catapult ICBC to the top brand in the world ranking.

Brand of Stable Progress

High building starts with a scoop of sand. A commercial bank is a business entity taking risk. Credibility is the life of a bank, also the foundation of the bank's brand. First of all, the brand value of a bank is determined by the trust from the public. Global financial disaster this time left many of most prestigious financial institutions in tatters because of their failure in derivative transactions. Their brands were shaken to the very root and century-old shops just fell down overnight. Meanwhile, ICBC is able to sustain its stable progress and be responsible to the depositors, customers and shareholders. ICBC vigorously expands its brand's visibility as "The Reliable Bank".

To a commercial bank, the first priority of stable progress is to maintain sustainable revenue stream, the basic interest of the shareholders and depositors. ICBC is one of the world large banks in terms of growth by chalking up 4 years of stable profits after tax since its shareholding restructuring in 2005 at an annual compound growth rate of 35.8%. While maintaining the momentum, ICBC underpins its stable progress in making the right choice on business model and risk appetites. On the one hand is to keep reasonable progress on releasing loans and reshape business to increase earnings. On the other hand, as usual, is to take customer deposit as the main source of capital funds. Deposit-to-loan ratio is kept at the most optimal when compared to the peers'. ICBC always places risk control and management as one major factor in the management of credit asset quality. By the end of first quarter, bad loan rate was down to 1.35%. With the non-performing loan balance and rate "both declined" for 10 years in succession, benefits of shareholders and depositors of ICBC are well protected.

ICBC brand receives wide laurels from the market and investors as a result of the banks' stable approach, steady performance, good risk management and control. On December 31, 2009 ICBC has a market capitalization of USD 268.982 billion, the largest among all the banks in the world.

Brand Value by Quality Services

In this year of Millward Brown's study report on Top 100 brands, consumer recognition and recommendation to a brand is a key input in determining brand value besides trust. Millward Brown's list is the only ranking that includes consumer perception as the determining factor. This annual poll collects the opinions of consumers and corporate clients from more than 20 countries and sees how brands play the role in consumers' decision-making process. This falls neatly to the ICBC building of a "consumer facing" brand, taking "Customer First" to grow ICBC brand value by creating value for the customers through improved services.

ICBC has the largest customer base among all the financial institutions in the world with over 200 million individual customers and 3.6 million corporate clients. ICBC sees customers as the most valuable brand asset. ICBC not only aspires to perfection in service manner and etiquettes, but underscores its performance pledge of "create value for customer" to offer quality, value-added financial services to all. The former "one service to all" no longer applies to nowadays versatile and complex customer demands. In light of this, ICBC embarks on a program of accelerated change of service efficiency and service mode to offer unique services tailored for different customer groups.

ICBC network of 149 wealth management centers, 3488 VIP centers, 8017 wealth management outlets is an example of delivering personalized services through different by classification of functions and services. ICBC also spent efforts to add fast and convenience across its electronic banking and set up different between physical outlets and electronic banking in a hierarchical, dimensional and diversified service scheme. At present, over 50% of the ICBC services are delivered through Electronic Banking. Customers can finish all the banking without walking out of the door.

Another focus of ICBC is customer experience. ICBC uses extended services to raise the satisfactory level of customers. An example of service improvement to raise satisfactory level of customers was the persistent measures taken since last year to stop financial scams through telecom network. As a result, customer accounts are well-protected. In serving the customers, ICBC ‘think ahead, act ahead". In 2009, ICBC was the first among the peers to cancel the full-amount interest penalty for overdue repayment of credit cards. The service was warmly received by the customers.

Brand Map by IT Innovation

Products and services are the key to a bank's brand. A brand cannot survive on uncompetitive products and services. Continual launch of products and services engages the loyalty of a particular audience in perpetuity. In today's information society, one cannot imagine if innovation in products and services is ever possible without a strong IT platform at the background.

In the very early stage, ICBC realized the role of technology in a brand map. In 1999, ICBC was the first among the peers to centralize all the data in one place and built the world-class IT platform. With all the ICBC-developed applications running, this provides an excellent web-based access platform for ICBC to achieve big improvement in service standard.

ICBC mastery of IT technology catches the envious eyes from worldwide peers. 100 million transactions are processed every day through this advanced platform. Every day ICBC ATMs accept an approximate of 10 million transactions. ICBC has a team of 13000 IT staff dedicated to product development and technical maintenance, and received over 90 State patents.

Running on this best-of-the-breed platform are all the ICBC-developed financial products of very high-tech, very high added value to fully support the diversified banking needs of the customers. Currently, ICBC has set up a repertoire of nearly 2400 financial products under different categories covering all the business areas of a commercial bank and extending to different markets such as securities and insurance. ICBC brand value is pushed to another height by being the largest financial institution in the country with the most number, most complete range of products.

To cope with the later expansion and international operation, ICBC is now working on the fourth generation core application system under a product innovation platform of more flexible, loose-coupled, component-based and high performance. The aim is to establish a solid foundation for ICBC to build a strong brand in the years to come.

Extend Brand via International Footprint

To burnish an international brand means keeping an eye on the customer trend and need, as well as offering of global services. The only chance for Chinese enterprises to be mainstream brands in the world is to go global, compete in the world. Since the opening of the first ICBC overseas subsidiary in Singapore in 1993, this strategic play of ICBC to gain international foothold has been very successful in pushing and extending the brand of "ICBC" to the world.

ICBC escalates its global presence after shareholding restructuring and going public. Today, ICBC boosts an overseas network of 175 subsidiaries in 22 countries/regions and 1403 corresponding banks in 125 countries/regions, which is a global financial network and service platform of clear hierarchy, well-positioned, diversified , highly efficient, covering all the international financial centers and main trading regions of China. Total assets of all the ICBC overseas subsidiaries stand at nearly USD 50 billion.

While gradually strengthening its global presence, ICBC emphasizes different aspects of a brand map and executes the strategy of "follow the customers to go global". ICBC moves into and extends its brand to the local market while backing Chinese enterprises to expand overseas. The result is encouraging. At present, ICBC Macau is the largest bank in Macau, ICBC subsidiaries in Hong Kong, Indonesia and Korea are already the mainstream banks in the local scene.

Worthy of mention, all 9 acquisitions of ICBC in the past few years have been successful. This is "emblematic" in the international M&Q market edging into unchartered waters. Profitable results in all ICBC overseas subsidiaries (including the new subsidiaries) in 2009 was all the more "miracle" given the international financial market remained far from normal. It is exactly these "impossible" that the brand of "ICBC" is known to the world further.

Enrich Brand by Giving Back to the Society

ICBC vision is to be the most profitable, most outstanding, most admired bank in the word, whereas the Most Admired Bank lives up to the brand trust and promise. Henceforth, ICBC remains committed to corporate social responsibility and giving back to the society as one strategic move to build the brand.

In recent years, ICBC upholds high level of integrity and seeks to set an example on good order in the financial sector. ICBC is the first bank to advocate "green credit". Over 99% of ICBC loans are released to enterprises eco-certified by the State. When disasters struck, ICBC takes full responsibility to offer all the quality, highly efficient financial services and help to the disaster-stricken areas. Programs for supporting the poor, education donation, volunteer services, widespread of financial literacy are some of the philanthropic initiatives to give back to the society. The regular announcement of ICBC Social Responsibility Report, the voluntary move of accepting supervision by the public are part of the philosophy of building the ICBC image as a large responsible bank, a good corporate citizen that abides by the law of the country, trusted and committed to charity and harmony.

There is no fast track in building a brand. The road taken by ICBC to build its world No.1 financial brand is a typical track of creating value for the customers, for the shareholders and for the society while growing its brand value. The building of an outstanding brand is a long road. Fortunate enough, Chinese enterprises are now facing a good opportunity to build their brands in a leap-frogging manner when the world is changing its landscape because of the rise of China. God Bless those who work hard! We will expect more and more Chinese enterprises are included in the later years' ranking of Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands.