Bank of China (BOC) emphasizes its "global services" and the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) has decided to "grow with you".
The management at China's four largest state-run banks - ICBC, BOC, CCB and ABC, have all been hoping that this round of image and brand re-creation will lead to an about-face of their images in the mind of consumers.
China's homegrown financial industry has a history of being plagued by a lack of innovative momentum. Long ago they figured out that it costs more to innovate than to imitate. So, the banks just copied each other's business models under different names. In addition to the "monkey-see-monkey-do" attitude, the four banks also had a deeply ingrained sense of security as China's traditional banking institutions.
Unlike the four large state-owned banks, joint-stock banks such as China Merchants Bank (CMB) and Huaxia Bank have been under great pressure just to survive. They've been racking their brains to understand a market dominated by state-run monoliths and are trying to find a niche to fill. Innovation combined with advanced technology and unique products and services helps these joint-stock banks establish their images as technologically-oriented banks. They are, therefore, more effective at establishing their unique brands and positions in the market hierarchy.
Driven by market demand and the opening up of the market to foreign capital, China's domestic banks have begun to shift towards retailing. At the same time, foreign capital has been coveting China's retail banking market due to the country's increasing personal wealth and recent permission to open RMB business to foreign lenders.
China's big-four banks have plenty of experience with large customer bases. But limited by operation skills, structural defects, underdeveloped data systems, low-quality employees and weak corporate governance, China's homegrown banks are unable to position themselves in a clear, exclusive way. The Chinese banks which are still struggling to position themselves must ask themselves if their strategies will really be able to cater to the ever-fickle taste of customers.
