"Lady's Card" Makes Shining Debut
Industrial Bank (IB) debuted its first Lady's Card on May 16 at a launch ceremony in Shanghai , together with Citylady , popular fashion magazine among Chinese women with the largest circulation. The card embodies fashion, class, benefits and convenience.
Targeting the group of urban women, the card is a creation of innovative thinking. The card design caters to female consumers' aesthetic taste, using images of rose in blossom and texture of smoothness and simplicity to express their independence and straightforward attitude towards life. It is also a reflection of IB's brand idea of “Wise consumption, Natural Life”, and promises more care for female consumers. Cardholders can not only experience the “Score-rewarded Consumption” and “Score-rewarded Advance” services initiated by IB in the country, but also enjoy considerable discounts in fitness clubs, beauty salons and restaurants. Besides, the membership of Beauty Club and regular theme parties in respect of fashion, wealth management and beauty care are available for cardholders. If cardholders subscribe the Citylady Magazine, they will be offered a 20% discount and opportunities to become special model for the magazine. For Gold cardholders, they will be attended as VIPs in 16 airports of 15 cities nationwide, and be given an air-travel accident insurance worth 2 million RMB Yuan.
IB listed on the A Share Stock Market on February 5, 2007 and became in the spotlight among investors due to its phenomenal business performance and remarkable development of its retail business in the recent two years. Since the beginning of this year, IB has ranked first among its counterparts in the amount and percentage of increase of retail credit business, with steady growth in sales of funds and wealth management products, as well issuing of debit cards.
By the end of the first quarter of 2007, personal loan balance of IB hit 76.3 billion RMB Yuan, an increase of 11.7 billion or 18.1% over that of the beginning of the year; the sales volume for comprehensive wealth management products reached 15.814 billion RMB Yuan, up by 539% over the same period of last year; the number of VIP clients amounted to 297,200, a growth of 39,300 or 15.24%. In additional to Garfield Credit Card, QQ Show Credit Card and Auto Card, Lady's Card was another new try for extending featured credit card product line. By the end of the first quarter of 2007, the number of IB credit card holders has rocketed to 1.3 million, a rise of 150% year on year, with amount of consumption totaling over 3 billion RMB Yuan, up by 330% year on year.
Reports say as a popular women's fashion magazine with the largest circulation up to 1 million a month in China , Citylady has her readers all over the country. Bauer Group, distributor of Citylady , is an international leading magazine publisher. It is their common innovative ideas about brands and thinking towards satisfaction for individualized market demands that bring Bauer Group and IB to the cooperation table. They will give full swing to such a new credit consumption tool on the basis of their own strength and edges.