ICBC is a Chinese Bank and the largest bank in the world when sorting by total assets or market capitalization. They recently launched a bank account bonus for the U.S. arm of their business. Reader JR Smooth also let us know that they will be releasing and issuing credit cards starting on July 2nd.
There are basically two levels of cards: Premier & Preferred. There are also two different payment networks these cards will be issued on: UnionPay & Visa. UnionPay has a strangle hold on the Chinese market, so it’s clear that these cards will be targeted towards business travelers to the region and Chinese ex-pats. I wouldn’t be surprised to see ICBC issue the two payment network cards simultaneously (e.g apply for the Premier & receive both Visa & Union Pay cards), as part of this partnership is about the 2016 China-US tourism year.
There is little detail about these cards currently, but here is what we do know:
- Preferred: 1% cash back on all purchases
- Premier: VIP Benefits & accelerated cash back
That doesn’t sound too exciting, but we’ll wait and see the full details of both cards before casting judgement.
View Comments (17)
Just wanted to let you know that application is now live on ICBC's website:
http://www.icbc.com.cn/ICBC/%E6%B5%B7%E5%A4%96%E5%88%86%E8%A1%8C/%E5%B7%A5%E9%93%B6%E7%BE%8E%E5%9B%BD%E7%BD%91%E7%AB%99/EN/ProductsServices/Creditcard/Browsecreditcards/BrowseCreditCards.htm?1=1&Ad_Source=%E4%B8%BB%E5%9B%BE_%E5%B7%A5%E9%93%B6%E7%BE%8E%E5%9B%BD%E8%8B%B1%E6%96%87%E9%A6%96%E9%A1%B5_690_300
Thanks, will review shortly.
Those four cards are already released.
ICBC has pushed out the card unveiling until October.
Thanks, bort.
lol, politics aside, their online banking system is crap.
The union pay version card would be very useful if you are traveling often to China, as CUP is de facto network there. Even though you can use Discover cards (which can be processed through CUP network), the EMV incompatibility has been causing lots of trouble on POS. Also, lack of CUP sticker on the Discover card also causes issues on the acceptance of the card by cashiers.
Wells Fargo is actually the largest bank measured by market capitalization.
Was just going by the stats shown in Wikipedia, must have been the largest by market cap at some stage.
At market close of June 28, 2016, ICBC has a market cap of HK$1.81T (US$231.7B) and WFC is merely US$230.47B. You are wrong!
That's just what investors are buying the stock for, though. By how much money is in the bank, ICBC has more than double the assets: $3.6T compared to WF's $1.7T.
I was just correcting what was stated in the article relating to market capitalization only, which said "ICBC is a Chinese Bank and the largest bank in the world when sorting by total assets or market capitalization."
yea. its just a small typo. nobody should really care. everyone knows what Doc meant. but total assets and market capitalization are two very different things. bank assets are also calculated in many different ways.
ICBC is not even a real bank. its a shady communist bank thats part of the government. its like saying the IRS is the largest bank in the USA. umm. what?
anyway, i dont need a CC from a communist bank.
Yet you wear diapers, watch television, play toys etc. - all from communist factories. If a communist bank has a 3% cashback card, you'll jump at it like a hungry beggar. Money is money, shabi.
How much do you trust what the Chinese put out
At least China didn't have a Lehman Brothers.
Lolz