BiaNews reported on the announcement by Jiang Jianqing, the chairman of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), where he revealed that the bank would be implementing blockchain technology.
The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd. is one of the ‘Big Four’ state-owned commercial banks and is the largest bank in the world with assets worth US$4.009 trillion (as of December 2017). The bank was founded in the year 1984 and serves over 530 million personal customers with its staff of over 5,000.
The ICBC recorded a net profit of USD 42 billion in the year 2017 according to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and achieved a stable profit growth with a year-on-year growth rate of 3%. According to ICBC’s 2017 annual results, “...the bank focused on the construction of ‘intelligent banking’ and accelerated the innovation of financial technologies. The Bank set up the Internet Finance Department and seven innovation labs to accelerate the launch of the e-ICBC 3.0 strategy. Registered users of the mobile banking platform “ICBC Mobile” reached 280 million, representing a growth of 11.5%.“
According to the ICBC chairman Yi Huiman, the bank is set to focus on the innovations in the space of cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence (A.I), blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT).
The report by BiaNews also made a note on the world largest bank figuring out use cases for ‘smart banking’ that could help facilitate a better service within the financial ecosystem by securing the financial data shared with third parties.
Although China has been quite resistant towards adopting cryptocurrencies and has actively placed regulation on the crypto space ever since September 2017, it hasn’t been hesitant towards embracing the possibilities offered by blockchain technology and has worked towards implementing it in a range of industries.
Coinedict reported over a week ago that China banned events that promoted cryptocurrencies beyond Beijing to include even the economic zone in Guangzhou southern China.
