September 7th is the official launch of ICBC silver trading service for personal account across the country, a service for all the customers to invest in precious metal. ICBC is the first among the commercial banks in China to open such service.

As related, ICBC silver trading for personal account is similar to that of trading gold. Two types of silver trading categories: account silver (ounce) against USD and account silver (gram) against RMB. Once individual customers open precious metal trading account in ICBC, they can trade precious metals during business hours through the counter at the designated outlets, or through electronic banking right at home to trade 24 hours a day non-stop from 7:00 am every Monday to 4:00 am Saturday (except National and public holidays), and place order from the shortest validity of 24 hours to 120 hours longest. ICBC prices on account silver are quoted in real-time and go along with the international market price, highly transparent. No delivery of physical metals after the transaction, eliminating the steps of warehousing, transportation or authentication. The new trading service is very convenient for retail investors.

In the opinion of the investment professionals, ICBC being the first bank in the country to launch silver trading service brings changes to the current situation of having only one type of precious metal available for investment. Since silver price is much lower than gold price, trading silver has low threshold, just an initial minimum of 100 grams or 5 ounces compared to the initial minimum of 10 grams or one ounce in trading gold. In other words, less than 500 yuan is required to trade silver based on the current spot price of silver. The small investment amount is better for customers to invest according to own risk tolerance. Moreover, silver prices fluctuate far more than gold prices. Well-experienced traders with higher risk appetite can get higher return if investing at the right opportunity.

According to the ICBC spokesperson, ICBC is the first bank in the country to launch gold trading service under RMB account in 2006. After 4 years of progress, in precious metal business ICBC leads the domestic market in terms of trading volume and number of customers. Today, ICBC is the bank in China offering the most number of investment categories of precious metals, longest trading hours and richest trading . The silver trading service of ICBC for personal account is warmly received by the customers since its pilot launch in Dalian and Guangzhou. The service will better serve more customers to invest in diversified precious metal products as it is now available nationwide.