Customer Service

To ensure that special group customers enjoy the same rights as other customers and provide them with convenient and people-oriented services, the Bank sets out the requirements for standardizing the service facilities and processes specific to special customers in the Service Quality Standards Manual for CITIC Outlets. Guided by the needs of different customer groups such as elderly, visually impaired, hearing-impaired, and pregnant women customers, and based on the general guideline of establishing a long-term service mechanism, the Bank works out a specific service process for various customers, providing “accompanied” instructions and services from customer reception and demand confirmation to business handling and seeing off customers, and requires outlets to regularly organize employees to walk through the service process for special customer groups in morning meetings, to ensure that key positions know the key points of service.

For customers unable to visit the outlets, the Bank activates the green channel, and offers humanized door-to-door service by adhering to the principle of “special arrangements for special matters in accordance with relevant regulations, expeditious action on urgent matters”, to get closer to customers through extended services.

To care for special customer groups, such as the elderly and visually impaired customers, the Bank provides the “Happiness+” version of the Mobile Banking App. With the design philosophy of “simplicity, thoughtfulness, specificity and security”, this version highlights the core banking functions, features simplified page structure and optimized visual effect, and supports screen-reading function. The adoption of a design that is closer to the real needs of customers delivers a better experience for customers to use the APP.

The Bank is working to reshape a new image of and upgrade its branches, which are decorated in a modern and minimalist style, to create a brighter, warmer, and cleaner hall space. The adoption of open design, diversified scenarios, modular combinations and mobile devices gives customers the freedom to choose a comfortable space to handle their business, giving full expression to the service philosophy of “acting in response to customer needs”.New outlets have introduced new devices and systems, including various new mobile intelligent devices, multimedia displays, integrated device management platform and information release management platform, accelerating the mobile and intelligent transformation and upgrading of outlets.

In addition, the Bank has developed a platform for visualized big data-based location selection and strengthened digital management of outlets to expose the outlets to areas with high population concentration and robust financial demands, and urge them to better meet the financial needs of surrounding residents, in an endeavor to effectively improve the comfortable and convenient experience of visiting customers, enhance the external service radiation ability of individual outlets, and create a real “warm bank”.

For the customer services on the Mobile Banking APP, the Bank continues to improve customer experience by providing intelligent services, and has introduced intelligent online customer service (“AI Housekeeper”), intelligent digital human, and other service models.

AI Housekeeper is an automated interactive robot created by the Bank using AI technology, which can respond to customers’ frequently asked questions, functional search, and other needs at any time. It will provide customers with more convenient services by improving the reserve of task scenario and Q&A databases through constant iteration..

As to digital humans, the Bank has successively rolled out digital human investment adviser, digital human manager, digital human hall assistant, and other functions. Relying on the front-end image of digital humans, the Bank, by pooling its professional investment research capabilities, has created digital human financial consultancy service, and “accompanying” feature of “Xiaoxin”, available to customers in scenarios such as customer operation, brand publicity, and live streaming.

For mobile banking, the APP, as the main online service platform, has been upgraded to Version 9.0, with a series of fantastic features, including “simplicity, economy, visuals, diversity, professionalism, attractiveness and thoughtfulness”. The Bank has created rights, pension account book, lending and other brand-new channels. For key financial scenarios, it gives customers much better experience through customer itinerary remodeling, functional integration, upgraded product selection, investor education activities, and visual noise reduction.

For personal online banking, the Bank has developed a personal online banking system that supports IE, Chrome, Firefox, Edge and other mainstream browsers, as an important part of its online channel, continuing to provide safe and convenient financial services for its users.

For its service account, the Bank’s service account offers convenient online services to customers through financial/non-financial services such as articles, customer service answers, and account movement notifications.

The Board of Directors of the Bank serves as the highest decision-making body for consumer rights protection, bearing ultimate responsibility for consumer rights protection. In principle, meetings are convened semi-annually. Its primary responsibilities include: 1. Developing the strategies, policies, and objectives for consumer rights protection, ensuring fair treatment of consumers, and integrating consumer rights protection into the overall business development strategy and corporate culture. 2. Providing overall planning and guidance for consumer rights protection initiatives, incorporating the performance of consumer rights protection into corporate governance assessments, and overseeing the effective execution and implementation of consumer rights protection strategies, policies, and objectives. 3. Exercising supervision over the performance of senior management in fulfilling their responsibilities for consumer rights protection, reviewing relevant matters, including but not limited to annual consumer rights protection plans, progress reports, significant issues, and information disclosure, and formulating relevant resolutions.

The Board of Directors establishes a Consumer Rights Protection Committee, which, in principle, convenes meetings semi-annually to review the work reports of senior management and the Consumer Rights Protection Department, assess the progress of consumer rights protection initiatives, examine the content of consumer rights protection information disclosures, and issue specialized resolutions related to consumer rights protection.

The Supervisory Board is responsible for overseeing the performance of the Board of Directors and senior management in carrying out their responsibilities for consumer rights protection. When deemed necessary, the Supervisory Board may attend meetings of the Board of Directors related to consumer rights protection and conduct specialized supervisory inspections to assess the implementation of consumer rights protection initiatives.

In early 2023, the Bank issued the 2023 CITIC Bank’s Plan for Employee Training on Consumer Rights Protection, which further clarifies specific requirements for each business line and branch to organize consumer protection training. These requirements include the frequency of training sessions, the number of participants, the target audience, record keeping, and reporting procedures. The Bank emphasizes that all units must fulfill their training management responsibilities and increase resources allocated to consumer protection training.

In the first half of 2023, the Bank prepared the CITIC Bank’s Manual on Learning and Development of Managers Related to Consumer Rights Protection. This manual further defines the job requirements, competency elements, graded competency labels, and behavioral descriptions for consumer protection managers. It also improves competency maps, learning roadmaps, and talent development plans for these roles. Currently, the Bank has developed and launched 29 specialized courses covering topics such as personal customer information protection, complaint handling, consumer protection ratings, consumer protection audits, consumer protection training, and consumer protection education. The next step is to promote the establishment of a certification system for consumer protection personnel across the Bank, fostering continuous improvement in the professional abilities of consumer protection managers.

In the first half of 2023, the Bank continued to strengthen ongoing training efforts. Firstly, more training activities were provided to interpret regulatory policies. In the first half of the year, the Bank disseminated a detailed infographic interpreting the Regulations on the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests in Banks and Insurance Institutions; the Bank organized online training camps offered by the People’s Bank of China’s Training Institute for consumer protection managers; online training sessions were also conducted for all 37 branch offices to interpret key policy content and regulatory requirements. Secondly, targeted empowerment was promoted. The Bank organized online workshops for consumer protection audits, conducted six-week online exchanges and learning sessions to address specific issues and real-life cases encountered in daily life, and delivered practical courses in a targeted way. Thirdly, practical drills were conducted. Simulation drills involving malicious phishing emails with QR codes was carried out for all bank employees to further enhance overall awareness of information security and effectively protect consumers’ financial information security.

In the Management Measures of CITIC Bank for Financial Knowledge Promotion and Education, it is stipulated that both the head office and all branches, as well as business outlets, should pay special attention to the promotion and education of financial knowledge for special groups such as migrant workers, people with disabilities, senior citizens, and students. This should be done by conveying financial knowledge in ways that are understandable to these special groups and by promoting the use of bank facilities and tools. The focus should be put on recognizing the diversity and differences in financial needs among these special groups. In the 2023 Work Plan of CITIC Bank for Financial Knowledge Promotion and Education on Consumer Rights Protection, it is explicitly required that each branch should conduct a series of thematic promotional activities with a focus on the actual needs of key groups such as senior citizens, young people, and new urban residents.

In the first half of 2023, the Bank actively responded to regulatory requirements and cooperated with regulatory authorities in conducting various activities such as the “3　15 Consumer Rights Protection Education and Awareness Week”, “Awareness Month for Prevention of Illegal Fundraising”, and “Financial Knowledge Promotion Roadshow”. Through unified deployment across the Bank and joint efforts from branch offices, a total of 7,802 activities were conducted, reaching 124 million consumers and generating over 18.977 million clicks on original content. These efforts received unanimous praise from consumers and regulators alike.

In the first half of 2023, the Bank continued to improve its standardized financial knowledge dissemination and education system. On one hand, the Bank made great efforts in offline education. In 2023, the Bank initiated a significant project for financial knowledge dissemination and education across the Bank. Currently, over 1,000 outlets have launched year-round education activities and held more than 3,000 offline salon events. Notably, Ningbo Branch introduced the first anti-fraud-themed subway train in Zhejiang Province, encouraging public participation in fraud prevention. This subway train has received recommendations from the Criminal Investigation Bureau under the Ministry of Public Security as a popular anti-fraud destination. Additionally, 6 branches in cities such as Wuhan, Changsha, Chengdu, Haikou, Urumqi, and Hefei have stationed officers in villages to regularly educate villagers on financial knowledge, raising their awareness of risk prevention and contributing to rural revitalization. On the other hand, the Bank also worked hard on online education. The Bank has comprehensively covered its official website, official WeChat account, mobile app, video platform, and “CITIC Bank WeLife” with a standardized financial knowledge dissemination mechanism. Several articles under the “Learning from Cases” series have been selected for use by consumer review platforms; the original educational video titled “Crackdown against Financial Fraud” was chosen for promotion by the National Anti-Fraud Center’s official account and the “Xuexi Qiangguo” platform.

The Bank has continuously refined our complaint management system through a comprehensive approach that includes proactive warning and prevention, real-time quality and efficiency control, post-complaint root cause analysis, and strengthened early intervention for significant complaints. The Bank has employed a full-process, tiered, and categorized control method to effectively reduce the number of complaints at all levels.

The CITIC Bank’s Consumer Complaint Management Measures clearly define the complaint handling process, channels for complaint submission, hotline numbers, and processing timelines. Complaints received through various channels are categorized based on their content and forwarded to the relevant branch or department at the head office, and responsible personnel will promptly address the complaint and engage with the complainant to resolve the issue.

The Consumer Rights Protection Office is responsible for establishing a consumer complaint management system and promoting its application to the Bank; they work to improve complaint management regulations and encourage relevant departments to enhance complaint handling workflows and mechanisms; the office also handles interactions with regulatory authorities, forwarding complaints received from these authorities; they establish and implement complaint management assessment requirements, ensuring that all branches and departments at the head office promptly address consumer complaints; additionally, the office regularly reports on the status of complaint management to the Board of Directors, the Supervisory Board, and their consumer rights protection committees.

The Customer Service Center under the Wealth Management Department is responsible for receiving complaints from consumers through various channels, including the customer service hotline at 95558 (which features a dedicated complaint hotline prompt on the first level of the voice menu, ensuring 7*24 based manual answering of consumer complaint calls), mobile banking, the official website, or the WeChat public account online customer service.

The Credit Card Center accepts consumer complaints related to credit card services submitted through the customer service hotline 4008895558.

The Consumer Rights Protection Committee under the Board of Directors annually reviews the summary of complaint management work and conducts inquiries regarding complaint handling matters, requesting branches with a high complaint rate to conduct substantive root cause analyses and monitor the implementation of subsequent corrective actions. The Audit Department of the Head Office conducts a specialized audit of complaint situations for both the head office and branch offices on an annual basis.

The Customer Service Center under the Wealth Management Department is responsible for handling complaints received through the 95558 hotline. This center has established an internal inspection mechanism for handling customer complaints; the quality inspection team monitors the entire process by listening to recorded complaint handling follow-up calls and evaluating aspects such as service etiquette, language used, the purpose of the call, accuracy and proficiency in providing information, and risk awareness operations. Each monitoring aspect is assigned a score, and a specific score is given based on the quality of responses, which is included in the overall performance evaluation.

The Consumer Rights Protection Office under the head office serves as the leading department responsible for consumer rights protection across the Bank. It leads the organization in conducting reviews of consumer rights protection for products and services. These reviews follow the “tiered responsibility and two-level review” principle, assessing whether relevant products and services incorporate the concept of consumer rights protection at various stages, including product design and development, pricing management, and agreement formulation, and assessing whether intermediary agencies and third-party organizations involved in partnerships with the Bank comply with consumer rights protection management requirements. In principle, these reviews are conducted within 3 working days from the date of receiving the submission materials.

In the first half of 2023, the Bank revised the CITIC Bank’s Consumer Rights Protection Review Management Measures for New Products and Services (Version 3.0, 2023) to further clarify the responsibilities of various departments and branches in consumer protection reviews. In terms of system enhancements, various improvements and optimizations were made to the consumer protection review system, including the SMS outreach client, outbound text messaging, and the open banking application platform. These changes aimed to ensure comprehensive coverage of consumer protection reviews for all new products and services throughout the Bank. Regarding performance assessments, the Bank further refined key performance indicators related to consumer protection reviews, such as the submission status, acceptance of review recommendations, and implementation of corrective actions; the Bank also further increased the assessment weight of consumer protection reviews, so as to effectively bring into play their binding effect.

The Bank attaches great importance to data security management and customer privacy protection. We establish comprehensive management systems and mechanisms to protect the information security, regularly publicize and implement the protection of customer privacy information, and strengthen privacy and data security protection through risk evaluation, external assessment, certification, and other measures, including:

In strict compliance with the Cybersecurity Law of the People’s Republic of China, the Data Security Law of the People’s Republic of China, the Personal Information Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China, and other applicable laws and regulations, the Bank has formulated a number of internal management systems and specifications for the protection of customer information and the management of data security, and clearly defined the requirements for the whole-Lifecyle management of customer information and electronic data on the premise of protecting customer rights and respecting customer wishes.

The Bank has established a comprehensive management mechanism to protect information security by: first, strengthening the security management during the collection, transmission, storage and use of customer data from the perspective of the life-cycle data management; second establishing complete working mechanisms for emergency response, risk treatment, incident reporting and other efforts, to prevent risks related to the security of data and personal information; third, conducting regular security assessments, security tests, security checks or other actions to ensure the effective implementation of relevant regulatory requirements and protect the security of the personal information provided by customers when purchasing and using financial products and services in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.

The Bank has established a comprehensive, systematic and normalized network security defense-in-depth system, and a platform-based intelligent security operation system, making it possible to exercise security control over terminals, hosts, networks, data, and other fields, and detect and resolve various abnormal behaviors and external attacks in real time. The Bank effectively protects the security of its Internet applications and customer rights by global real-time monitoring of and quick response to counterfeit APPs, phishing websites, and sensitive information related to the Bank through external penetration testing, security monitoring service or other means, and keeps improving its ability to monitor, handle, and trace Internet threats, to effectively avoid network security risks, and ensure the security and stable operation of its information system.

The Bank has established emergency plans and incident reporting mechanism covering various aspects such as information system networks, computer rooms, security and data, subject to addition and revision based on system changes; has made several drill plans and formed practical exercise programs covering external attacks, malicious emails, data leakage, and other typical network security threat scenarios; and organizes annual internal and external attack and defense drills to comprehensively enhance overall security defense capability.

To enhance the awareness of information security protection, the Bank regularly organizes information security training and education for the general public, all employees, and internal technology departments, including: first, publicizing relevant information for the general public to strengthen their knowledge of preventing online fraud and protecting personal information; second, providing education and training of compliance warning and customer information protection for all employees through online courses and in other forms to enhance the overall security awareness of employees; and third, organizing security training for employees in technology departments to cultivate and enhance the professional capabilities of security personnel in terms of management and technology.

The Bank’s Mobile Banking APP, Mobile Card Space, and other applications have undergone rigorous testing and certification reviews. They have passed the “Certification of Financial Technology Products” and completed the “Registration of Mobile Finance Client Application Software” with the National Internet Finance Association of China. In November 2022, the Bank was awarded the title of “Financial Technology Product Certification Demonstration Institution” at the certification ceremony of “Transferring Trust and Serving Development” held by the National Financial Technology Certification Center. The Bank performs annual review and certificate renewal work in accordance with the certification standard every year. This recognition signifies that internal self-developed mobile financial applications have been acknowledged by the national authority and that their quality meets relevant specifications and is controllable in terms of client software security, barcode payment security, and the protection of customers’ personal information.

According to the Cybersecurity Law of the People’s Republic of China and the requirements for graded protection of national cybersecurity (referred to as “Graded Protection”), the Bank’s online banking and other important information systems are graded and filed with the Ministry of Public Security as Grade IV and III (Grade IV is the highest level in the financial industry) systems,. Security assessments are performed annually from physics, network, applications, and other aspects in accordance with the requirements of requirements for graded protection evaluation, to fully improve the Bank’s system security protection capabilities and reduce the risk of network attacks.

The Credit Card Center of the Bank passed the ISO27001 Information Security Management System certification for the first time in 2010. The certification business scope includes credit investigation, credit card issuance, authorization, accounts and statements, collection, adjustment and deduction in relation to its credit card business, and system development, system operation, and information technology planning of organizations. The ISO27001 certification is carried out every year, and the system has been performing well so far.

The Bank has formulated and issued the E-Banking Privacy Policy of China CITIC Bank, strictly observes the policy to collect, store and use customers’ personal information, and promises to protect customers’ personal information through appropriate security protection measures by law. The privacy policy stipulates that the Bank grants users the right to control their personal information, including the right to access, correct, update and delete their personal information, and change the scope of authorization, and promises to collect, use, or retain customer information based on the “minimum necessary” principle, and obtain customer consent for data sharing or transfer. Relevant scenarios and operation methods are also specified to effectively protect the rights of customers to control their personal information.