On December 17, Beijing, winners of Third Annual "ICBC Cup" Nationwide University Students Banking Products Design Contest ("Contest") were celebrated in an award ceremony hosted by the organizers - ICBC and University of International Business and Economics ("UIBE"). The Contest attracted scores of university students nationwide to participate since its kick-off in May this year. The organizing committee received a total of 1,052 design proposals submitted by 6,200+ contestants coming from 370+ universities nationwide. The panel judges finally decided to present awards to 37 proposals and 22 customer experience essays after strict review.

This year's winning proposals covered a wide range of banking businesses such as bank card, investment/wealth management, electronic banking, payment/settlement and loan. Many new ideas which are related to people's everyday life and business running in a company match with customer needs. The contestants used their vivid imagination and creativity and offered different alternatives to meet the needs of financial services from consumers nowadays. An example: besides offering discounts of different types of co-branded cards in-one-go, a "Multi-function Card" is a combination of debit card and credit card. "Payment System for Shopping" is a creative system for fast payment when shopping. The designer incorporated wifi, merchant settlement and 2-dimension codes to create the system. "Cash to Family" is a financial product tailored to meet individual preferences. It includes a basket of services for buying funds or wealth management products in fixed amounts and fixed periods or gold accumulation. Authors of winning essays wrote about their use of banking products and services, how banking products and services address the practical issues and create value for customers. The winning essays serve as important references to launch innovative banking products and improve banking services.

The panel of judges said, this year's Contest carried on the model of the two former contests in the innovation of banking product. New concepts, new approaches by gathering the social force and wisdom of everybody will help drive the innovation and service capacity of China banking sector. The winning proposals contributed a certain value in financial academic study and banking product and service practices. The proposals crystallized the innovative ideas and capability of the contestants and a reflection of the concern from the nowadays university students on the hot issues such as national economy development, social and people's livelihood, demonstrating their mission and responsibility to use what have been learnt to serve the society, the public.

Now in its third year, "ICBC Cup" Nationwide University Students Banking Products Design Contest scores high participation from university teaching staff and students, said a UIBE official. Reputation of the contest has been spread largely by word of mouth among them. The last three years of the Contest in a row marked the high importance attached and deep consensus between banks, universities and the society in innovative personnel training and cooperation on innovative areas.

Being a commercial bank in China having the strongest innovation capability, ICBC offers the most number of financial products, said an executive with the Bank. Guided by unwavering principle of "Putting Customers First, Creating Values by Services", ICBC leverages its domain expertise and moves forward its product innovation and service improvement to turn innovations into business applications. This results in the launch of a wide spectrum of new products, new services of high technology, high practical usage, high availability and high value-added, tailored to the needs of the customers. ICBC had a comprehensive portfolio of 4,015 financial products as of end of September 2012, 4.5 times the number of products before going public in 2006, covering all business areas in capital markets, money markets and insurance markets. Meanwhile, ICBC evolves its capabilities while focusing consistently on innovation. So far, ICBC has 178 state patents, over 60% of all patents in China banking sector. At the forefront of innovation and technology, ICBC invites all sectors and the public including academic circle to come out with new product ideas. Organizing the Contest in collaboration with UIBE again is a fruitful attempt and continuous effort of ICBC to welcome new ideas from the public. To ICBC, this year's Contest is a good opportunity to work with the industries, universities, and society to exploit new technologies on the innovation of financial products. The ultimate goal is to roll out innovative financial products and improve the services to cater the changing demand of customers.