ICBC Bill Department's Shenyang Sub-department celebrated its eighth anniversary recently. In September eight years ago, Shenyang Sub-department, one of the eight subsidiaries under ICBC Bill Department, was the first to set its stone in Northeast region and opened the curtain of the Department's network of direct subsidiaries in eight cities nationwide and unified management system. Over the course of eight years Shenyang Sub-department remains committed to the business philosophy of "Customer Focus" and able to sustain its development and expand the market through innovation, improved services and strict risk control. The Sub-department has established its brand image in Northeast region as an organization dedicated in bill business and contributed its efforts in serving the local economy.
As of today, Shenyang Sub-department has bought a total of 230000 bills with an amount of nearly 915 billion yuan, registering 7.5 billion yuan in interest income. The stellar performance not only let Shenyang Sub-department hold top slot in ICBC Bill Department's ranking, but a strong lead over the peers in Northeast region. More worthy of note is that while gathering pace in business scale and performance, Shenyang Sub-department maintains zero percentage in accepting fraudulent bills, bad loan rate, fund loss rate and economic crime rate. Shenyang Sub-department has set the example in this area on the risk control in bill business.
Behind this outstanding performance is the entrepreneurial road that Shenyang Sub-department has taken over the past eight years.
Grow by Innovation Despite All the Difficulties
Leading the way by innovation was the key element of Shenyang Sub-department's success starting from nothing and small to a first-class specialized bill organization in eight years. In the midst of the competitive bill market, staffs in the Sub-department watched attentively the macro conditions in bill market and the micro business situation in the Sub-department. Guided by the summarization in the overall result and a constant need to stay innovative, the Sub-department faced every challenge head on while moving forward.
The sudden financial turbulence in 2009 changed the economic and financial landscape in China as well as globally. Bill market was not immune to the crisis as demonstrated by the drastic fall of discounting business from the internal branches of ICBC under the Department. Meanwhile, competition was getting intense in the market, adding difficulty in market expansion.
Faced with the difficulties, Shenyang Sub-department gathered the thoughts, looked for the business shortcomings and put forward creatively "Three shifts", a new development approach involving three changes. First change was proactive expansion instead of leveraging business processing. Second change was balanced progress between discounting for customers in/out of ICBC, re-discounting and intermediary business, rather than having a majority of business coming from ICBC internally. The last was to change from a business model of low efficiency, service-based to high efficiency, high income. Expected result was achieved through these measures. Business from ICBC internally dropped to 9.32% from 81.39%, while business from outside ICBC rose to 90.39% from 18.6%. Ratio of direct discounting business surged from 0.01% to 0.29%. Besides, the Sub-department embarked aggressive marketing plans on electronic bill business. In November 2009, Shenyang Sub-department and Shenyang Branch of China Merchants Bank concluded the first re-discounting of electronic bill in Northeast regional market. The transaction let Shenyang Sub-department better compete in the market.
Top Services to Create Brand
In these eight years since inception, Shenyang Sub-department remains committed to the business philosophy of "Customer Focus". Starting from actual requirements of the business and customers, the Sub-department continues to take measures and steps through different to stay in touch with the key customers and make it easier for customers to do business with the Sub-department, and tap into the bill market in Northeast region.
Senior officials at all levels in Shenyang Sub-department took high concern in building and maintaining relationship with the customers. To stay close to the customers, the Sub-department paid regular or irregular visits to the customers and participated in the marketing events hosted by Head Office to the key customers of ICBC. The effort paved the way for the continual and healthy growth of bill business in and out of ICBC in all aspects.
Precise and best-quality service was the major reason behind Shenyang Sub-department's expanding customer base, business scale and brand visibility. Accurate positioning on the customers helped Shenyang Sub-department deliver the most-required and best-suited services for the customers. To the internal customers of ICBC, the Sub-department fully manifested its role as the main bill financing channel. Based on the large requirement of custody finance from the branches, the Sub-department maintained smooth transition for the continual growth of large-scale custody/financing business from internal customers through unified deployment and coordinated effort. To the external customers of ICBC, the Sub-department leveraged on ICBC financial, network and clearing services to start the base in Liaoning and tap into the bill markets of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Dalian. The Sub-department drew up comprehensive proposal on integrated custodian service and started promotion through organizing events. To the customers, the Sub-department kept them informed on the latest interest rate and business policy, understood their requirements, answered their questions, created better understanding and trust, and looked for opportunities to build partnership with them. By enhanced service support, policy guidance, risk monitoring and information transmission, the Sub-department established the reputation of ICBC Bill Department among the customers and sustained a strong influence in Northeast regional bill market.
Currently, Shenyang Sub-department has established long-term relationship with 242 financial institutions and 33 corporate clients. Today, Shenyang Sub-department is the specialized bill organization dominating the Northeast regional bill market.
Strengthen Internal Control to Stop Risk
Shenyang Sub-department adhered to the ICBC principle of stable operation. Starting from the date of setting up, the Sub-department executed Head Office's business philosophy of "System before business, procedure before operation" on risk control and created own unique risk management.
Shenyang Sub-department set up a leadership task force on internal control and a clear vertical approval scheme and risk control system of clear permission and responsibility in order to effectively separate the checking and approval. The risk approval group of the Sub-department played its role actively. The group added review content by combining Head Office's requirement and Sub-department's business situations and included disputable business and discounting business applying for the first time in the review agenda. This effectively reinforced the checking on the truthfulness of the bill transaction background, policy and related risk in large-amount bill.
The Sub-department started the education activity - "Learn Rules Promote Development" and increased the risk awareness among the staff and helped them better in risk control through various ways: case study, organized them to study Head Office ISO files and fine-tuned the business process. Despite the heavy workload and urgent assignment, the Sub-department helped the staff to familiarize with the operation process through standard steps and encouraged the staff to talk to each other. All problems and potential issues were corrected in order to stop and eliminate operational risk timely and ensure the stable running of custody business.
The Sub-department continuously monitored the execution of the rules by a combination of self-inspection and internal control checking. The Shenyang Sub-department completed the self-inspection on the main business management matter as scheduled with checking, correction and reporting at the same time. Under the system of "whoever checking is responsible", correction on the problems found during Head Office's quality monitoring and Sub-department's self-inspection were checked and verified. The objective was to increase staff awareness in executing the rules.
During these eight years, the mission of "Strong trust, professional services, refined management, stable operation, continual meeting customer requirements" has been embedded in the heart of Shenyang Sub-department's staff and become their initiatives, a fundamental guarantee for the service quality and professional brand of ICBC bill business.