Awards for Excellence 2008: China

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) now claims to have the world’s biggest market capitalization among publicly listed banks, reaching just under $339 billion at the end of 2007. That amounts to annual growth of 35%, just one of a number of impressive indicators of the bank’s recent development: it also recorded a 65% increase in after-tax profits for the fiscal year and a 16% increase in return on average equity. Although many of China’s banks found increasing deposits a reasonably straightforward process, ICBC also impressed with its efforts to diversify income streams. It increased net fee and commission income by 110% (admittedly from a relatively small base), and sale of wealth management products by Rmb1.234 trillion ($178.8 billion), a year-on-year increase of 182%.