In recent years Industrial and Commerce Bank of China (ICBC)  has maintained a tradition to hold to press conference on its annual performance, an occasion seldom would journalists miss as the pragmatic and efficient working style of the conference makes the process very productive. The host always comes straight to the point instead of wasting time reading the speech draft. Instead the host will send the news release to every journalist. Hence the journalists can ask questions directly.

The 2016 annual performance press conference at 6:30 PM on March 30^th was just the same. Again, the conference was held simultaneously in both Beijing and Hongkong, and the journalists posted their questions on the screen by turn to achieve on-site interaction. This time, Huiman Yi, the Chairman of ICBC, Hongli Zhang,  Vice president of ICBC, Bairong Wang , the Chief Risk Officer, and Changfa Zhu — the manager of asset and liability department attended the conference in Beijing, while Shu Gu, Vice chairman and  president of ICBC headquarter,  Xueqing Guan — the Secretary of the Board, Xuekun Wei, Manager of Credit and Investment Management Department, and Wenwu Zhang, Manager of Financial Accounting Department attended the one in Hongkong.

The journalists kept asking questions constantly, whereas the high level managers represented by Huiman Yi used their wisdom to answer them carefully. There have been many highlights  during the entire conference, which could respond to plenty of hotpot issues in banking industry. There are some brilliant contents of Huiman Yi’s response at the conference:

Hotspot Issue: About Financial Technology

ICBC May Achieve the Applications of Blockchain Technology This Year.

Huiman Yi: The fast development of financial technologies including the applications  of big data, artificial intelligence and Blockchain has brought a big challenge to traditional banking industry. In the changing era, if we do not fully harness these technologies, the banking industry will be very passive in the future’s development and competition. Moreover,technology plays a an important role in impelling the bank’s transformation and development. As a matter of fact, there are three major aspects where ICBC has been focusing on.

First, we attach great importance to the research of advanced technology and the cultivation of  technical talents. We have established 7 innovation labs in ICBC’s head office including the labs of artificial intelligence, cloud computation, blockchain, bioidentification, big data and internet finance. There are approximately 500 researchers in our labs doing advanced technical research.

Based on the further study of current changes, we will further adjust and perfect the IT structure to build up a more open and flexible technical structure with more powerful functions. We also will promote loose coupling  as well in order to set up a very good technical platform for like quick innovation, iteration development and distributed system.

Second, we attach great importance to the practical use or trial of these new technologies. For example, in big data , we are the first to set up  a anti-scam system based on big data . You may have noticed that we have successfully intercepted more than 110 thousand telecommunication remittances related to scams, avoiding losses of 1.6 billion RMB in total for clients.

In artificial intelligence, we invested and produced a new generation of intelligent robot. We have used AI in our phone bank and there has already been great progress.

Our fingerprint recognition system and face recognition are developing very well. Currently, the fingerprint technology has been implemented in client identification system of phone banking. In terms of the face technology, it has been developed relatively fast and well. And it has been utilized in some bank branches as a supportive recognition technology.

Considering the blockchain technology, our research, development and trial have been done really smoothly, and it is expected to be put into practical use this year. We completed  Blockchain-based system of  financial product trading platform.This system provides P2P transfer and transaction of financial assets for the clients  This system is coming public soon.

We also participated in the research of digital currency of PBoC and  blockchain-based digital transaction platform of promissory notes. And so far, the whole progress goes well.

Third is about the apps. ICBC has published 1.0 and 2.0elCBC versions and they are working very well. Both young clients and future clients pay a lot of attention to details like  the mobile operation as end-user, convenient and scenario-based payment,  convenient financing, online financial management and one-stop service. These points are the law of internet financing industry.

We are also building a more advanced ICBC elCBC service mode. And we name it as smart banking system. We will follow the development of FinTech and thus focus on the value the best service ,  scenario-based  service mode and more collaboration . With an open and cooperative attitude, ICBC will build a more safe and convenient service to improve our ability to gain new clients and to maintain clients’ loyalty.