The world’s biggest bank in terms of assets has just launched an ambitious new smart bank initiative encompassing a broad range of fintech applications.
On 8 November the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) officially launched its new smart bank ecosystem (ECOS) at a press conference held on Beijing.
Chen Siqing (陈四清), ICBC chair, said that the ECOS was an acronym referring to “enterprise-level,” “customer-centre,” “open,” and “smart.”
The ECOS system has been opened to over 2,000 “ecosystem partners,” as well as integrated 188,000 industry users from a total of 15 sectors including finance, education and tourism.
ICBC also emphasised its creation of a series of core tech platforms to cover what it describes as the “ABCDI” of fintech, being artificial intelligence, the blockchain, cloud computing, big data and the Internet of Things.”
Gu Shu (谷澍), ICBC president, said that the ECOS system embodies “six main landmark accomplishments:”
- The establishment of an open and integrated cross-sector ecosystem, to become China’s largest integrated financial services supplier;
- The launch of a “Smart +” innovation model, with an emphasis on digitized smart applications and the creation of smart services, smart products, smart risk control and smart operations;
- The provision of highly applicable, highly flexible support to key “hot spot” scenarios;
- The creation of a dual core IT framework, including the first core operations system based on distributed, cloud platforms. According to ICBC over 90% of its systems functions are run on open platforms, greatly increasing systems transactions;
- The creation of a series of leading enterprise-level fintech platforms, encompassing artificial intelligence, smart biometrics, the Internet of Things and blockchain technology;
- The development of modular innovation capability that provides for flexible combinations and rapid research and development.
