On September 27, ICBC signed a cooperation framework agreement in Beijing with six enterprises including COFCO, CRRC, Baowu, PowerChina, State Grid and China National Cotton Exchange to form a supply chain financial union of key enterprises. Upon establishment, union members will integrate resources of customers, markets, channels, data and technology, and reinvigorate small and micro upstream and upstream enterprises of supply chain. Meanwhile, the union will explore innovation and application of financial technology such as big data, internet of things and blockchain to advance smart upgrade of industrial chain finance.

The first union members participating in the signing ceremony have extensive experience and strength in supply chain finance. For example, in cooperation with COFCO, ICBC granted nearly RMB 10 billion of financing for its upstream and downstream customers. Beijing Cotton Exchange and ICBC jointly developed business processing model like smart warehouse receipt and remote monitoring, providing nearly RMB one billion financing for customers of the platform.

An official with ICBC said that ICBC began to develop supply chain finance as early as 2009, which lowered the financing threshold for upstream and downstream enterprises of the industry chain and drove the healthy development of small and micro enterprises by instilling core enterprise credit into the whole industrial chain. ICBC also attempted to integrate the data of trade, fund and logistics of core enterprises and upstream and downstream enterprises of the industrial chain during long-term trading activities and improve the information transparency of industrial cluster. In recent years, ICBC has used financial technology to develop an online supply chain financing model featuring automatic review of trade background, automatic approval system and instant loan based on electronic interaction of bank-enterprise information, which further raised financing efficiency and reduced corporate financing cost.

So far ICBC has established supply chain partnership with more than 3,200 core customers, covering high-end equipment manufacturing, modern agriculture, clean energy, information communication and other key industries. It has granted more than RMB 800 billion financing for over 11,000 upstream and downstream customers. In the future, by leveraging its strength in large customer resource, ICBC will extend industrial chain financial services to more small and micro enterprises, while providing excellent financing services for industrial chain customers of union members.