Bank of China Limited and the Alibaba Group, signed in Beijing a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement, announced jointly offer e-commerce value-added services. Li Lihui, president of Bank of China, and Alibaba Group Jack Ma Chairman of the Board attended the signing ceremony, the Bank of China Vice President Si-Qing Chen and Shao Xiaofeng, vice president of Alibaba Group, on behalf of the two sides signed a cooperation agreement. Under the agreement, bilateral cooperation will cover electronic payments, international business development, SME financing network, network marketing, many aspects of cooperation. Bank of China, strong financial strength and leading international business for the payment of Alibaba Group and its treasure in business development companies to provide more solid support.
Bank of China is the largest state-controlled commercial banks, by tier one capital, Bank of China in 2008 in the UK "Banker" magazine "the world's 1,000 largest banks," ranked No. 10. Bank of China is the most international commercial banks in 29 countries and territories worldwide agency networks owned, including nearly 10,000 domestic institutions, foreign institutions and more than 800.
Back in 2007, Bank of China and Alibaba on the first start of the international business cooperation with Alibaba Group's companies to launch Alipay acquiring business overseas, and overseas businesses Alipay network members to provide purchase and pay for shopping service. April 2009, the Bank of China started to carry out online banking to pay co-Bowes, Bank of China Internet banking users can achieve Alipay online shopping, payment and other functions.
The signing of the comprehensive strategic partnership, marking the two sides Alipay cartoon, credit system, SMEs network financing, credit card innovation, business innovation and other areas of international cooperation into a new phase, which conform to the Internet economy and e-commerce development inevitable requirement. According to China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) released the latest data, as of June 30, 2009, the number of Chinese netizens reached 338 million, ranking first in the world. Internet banking, e-commerce and the Internet are closely related to payment and settlement methods are widely used in air travel, virtual games, utility fees and other fields of public utilities, profoundly changed people's lives. As the largest electronic payment platform, as of July 6, 2009, Alipay had already exceeded 200 million users in 2008, Alibaba's Taobao to achieve sales of 99.96 billion yuan.
The prospects for cooperation and the significance of the confidence of both sides. Alibaba side said that the Bank of China is China's most international banks, with Bank of China to carry out a comprehensive strategic cooperation to jointly cope with globalization for both sides to meet the rapid development of e-commerce industry, the opportunities and challenges, to achieve a modern financial and high-tech channel the combination of great positive significance. BOC said the Alibaba B2B platform is the world's largest online trading platform, is the international development trend of Alipay, Alibaba's overall strategy and cooperation is not only able to both provide better e-commerce value-added services, the promotion of and globalization in the electronic bank's development will have far-reaching impact.