Recently, ICBC was awarded "The 2008 Best Trade Finance Bank in China" by the American financial magazine Global Finance at their "Best Finance Banks in the World" selections. ICBC is the only Chineese bank that won this prestigious honor. Meanwhile, in the annual selection held by the Hong Kong financial magazine The Asset, ICBC stood out as "The 2008 Rising Star Trade Finance Bank".

As pointed out by the industry, ICBC, as the largest Chinese bank with international influence, owns the most extensive corporate customer base, a settlement network covering both home and abroad, abundant trade finance products, capability of continuous innovation, a leading technology platform and highly professional staffs; hence it makes one of the leading trade finance banks in China. The winning of these two high-profile honors clearly indicates that the trade finance services of ICBC have gained reorganization by the international society. 

In 2008, ICBC seized the market opportunities in time, supported by its group advantages, provided comprehensive trade finance services to clients; thus witnessing a continuous rapid growth in its international settlement business and international trade financing. Its international settlement volume exceeded USD 750 billions for the first time, in which the international settlement business by domestic institutions accounted for USD 579.5 billion, a year-on-year increase of 37.24%. The volume of international trade finance by ICBC branches both inside and outside China also surpassed USD 50 billion.

The continuous rapid growth of ICBC's trade finance business is also fruit of its efforts to pay close attention to market demands and enhance product and service innovation, by which it has not only increased its international competiveness, but also is able to provide highly effective and convenient financial services to its clients involved in international trade. First of all, ICBC owns an abundance of domestic and international trade financing products, including letters of credit, collection, credit sales and other types of financing services necessary for trade settlement, hence is capable of providing comprehensive trade financing services for clients conducting their businesses in both domestic and international markets. Secondly, supported by its leading technology platform and overseas networks, ICBC can make personalized international settlement and trade financing solutions for large-scale group corporations, which enable them to reduce the cost of capital and strengthen management centralization and risk control. In addition, considering the current trend that credit sales has taken up an increasingly large portion in international settlements, ICBC has kept developing new products and services to promote new businesses such as international factoring. Since 2006 its export dual factoring business has increased by nearly 100 fold. In September 2008, ICBC formally registered as a TSU (Trade Services Utility) member bank, and entered the TSU system developed by SWIFT (Worldwide Inter-bank Financial Telecommunication Association), creating a sound platform of product innovation for credit sales business.

While promoting its international trade financing business, ICBC has launched the online services for international settlement and trade financing, further improving the efficiency and safety of its services. The approval procedural for trade financing has been completely computerized by ICBC. By establishing electronic control over the approval process and crystallizing its management, ICBC has managed to link the approval procedurals and the follow-up operations, setting up efficient and convenient electronic and a comprehensive risk-control platform for international trade financing. In August 2006, ICBC institutes a document processing center to centralize and flatten its document business management. At present, ICBC's ability to process documents has taken the lead among domestic banks. Since over half of its document business is handled in the document processing center, ICBC has achieved centralized business operation and data management in major areas of China. In November 2008, ICBC promoted this centralized model in overseas branches, realizing centralized document processing first in Singapore and Seoul branch offices.  
 
According to relevant official of ICBC, in 2009 China's foreign trade faced severe challenges as well as plentiful opportunities; in such a context, ICBC would accelerate the pace of innovation, keep in line with the market demands to introduce financial products and services, and take full advantage of its networks both at home and abroad, so as to facilitate Chinese enterprises to "go global" and achieve a win-win relation between banks and enterprises.