ICBC, the world's biggest bank, was carved out of China's central bank
For three decades after 1949, China had essentially one bank doing everything. When reformers split it apart, one of the pieces became the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. Since 2012 it has been the largest bank in the world by assets, and its 2006 stock market debut set a global record.
Under the monobank system, the People's Bank of China handled every financial task. Reforms starting in 1978–1979 turned it into a proper central bank and spun off specialised lenders beneath it. ICBC was the fourth, created at the start of 1984 to take over the ordinary business of collecting savings and lending to industry. The state still controls it; at the end of 2021 bodies answering to the Ministry of Finance held 69.3 percent.
Its public listing in October 2006 was a landmark. ICBC became the first company to debut on the Hong Kong and Shanghai exchanges at the same moment, raising 21.9 billion dollars and beating the record set by Japan's NTT DoCoMo in 1998. Months earlier Goldman Sachs had paid 2.6 billion dollars for a 5.75 percent stake, the largest sum it had ever invested. Shares closed almost 15 percent higher in Hong Kong on day one. The record lasted only until 2010, when Agricultural Bank of China edged past it.
Expansion abroad began with a Singapore branch in 1993 and later took in Luxembourg, which became its European base, a London markets business bought from Standard Bank, Turkey's TekstilBank and a former BankBoston arm in Argentina, then the largest deal by a Chinese bank in Latin America. By 2019 it had lent 100 billion dollars to Belt and Road projects.
Size brings exposure. In November 2023 the ransomware gang LockBit hit its US unit, leaving it unable to clear a large batch of US Treasury trades for a day. Environmental groups, meanwhile, have accused it of hypocrisy for helping finance Ethiopia's Gilgel Gibe III dam despite signing up to international green lending standards.
Source: Industrial and Commercial Bank of China
