To meet customers' needs for diversified investment in recent years, ICBC has continued to strengthen innovation in functions and categories of account-based trading products by introducing precious metals, foreign exchanges, energy resources, basic metals, and agricultural products, which has formed ICBC’s five  account-based trading product lines.

China has already become the world's most influential country in terms of consumption of commodities. In the face of enormous fluctuations of crude oil, basic metals, agricultural produces and other commodities in the international market, Chinese investors, due to lack of safe and effective channels for investment and trading, often miss the precious investment opportunities. Now, however, through ICBC account-based trading, investors can have direct access to precious metals, crude oil, copper, soybeans, foreign exchanges and other trading businesses in the international market. The share-based ICBC account-based trading without withdrawal in kind saves customers trading cost and makes trading easier and faster. Account-based trading is not only suitable for investors of precious metals, crude oil, foreign exchanges and other trading products, but closely connected with customers’ daily life. For example, in the case of the rise in transportation costs as a result of the inflated gasoline price, people can buy ICBC account-based crude oil in advance, which can make up for the additional expenditure in refueling through profits earned from rising prices of crude oil, and thus ensure the life quality.

ICBC account-based trading services boast many features and advantages. The first is full range of trading products, covering precious metals, crude oil, copper, soybeans, and foreign exchanges, among which account-based crude oil, paper copper, account-based soybeans, and account-based foreign exchanges are the unique products of the Bank. The second is comprehensive trading functions. All account-based trading products can be selling after buying (long position) or buying after selling (short position); meanwhile, the trading can be either real-time or order-pending, and a variety of pending methods are available for investors. The third is the low threshold for both account-based trading products and the minimum trading increments. For example, the starting point of RMB account-based silver trading is 1 gram (around RMB 3), and that of crude oil is 0.1 barrel (around RMB 30). The fourth is convenient trading channels. Account-based trading products are simple in operation and easy for transaction as account opening and trading are mainly via internet banking, mobile banking, telephone banking and other electronic banking channels. The fifth is long trading hours, which remains simultaneous with the international market. For example, from 7:00 on Monday through 4:00 on Saturday the account-based precious metals are tradable for 24 hours every day. The sixth is instant payment. The funds for account-based trading products are cleared on a real-time basis with instant payment. Allowing multiple transactions a day, the efficiency of the use of funds can be maximized.

According to an ICBC official, for the next step, ICBC will improve and optimize the functions of account-based trading products, upgrade the customers’ experience, and actively explore for new categories and businesses, consistently providing customers with high-quality account-based trading products.