Internet banking has enormous growth potential in China, according to a report released by the nation's financial certification body yesterday.

About one-third of both individual and corporate banking clients in China's 10 major cities used online services this year, an increase of 4.2 and 1.7 percent from 2006, the China Financial Certification Authority (CFCA) report said.

These figures indicate that "prospects for online banking are very bright", according to the CFCA.

The report was based on a survey of 2,500 individual and 2,000 corporate banking clients in 10 cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, said Wang Long from the CFCA's marketing department.

The report said that over half of the individual online banking customers surveyed saw security as the priority when they chose an online banking service this year. Those who chose not to use online banking services were put off for security reasons.

More than 53.5 percent of the individual respondents used digital certificates to accept online banking services to ensure transaction security, compared to 46 percent in 2006.

China's booming stock market has boosted online banking this year, with more individual and institutional investors trading stocks and funds on the Internet.

When the survey was conducted for the first time in 2005, only one-fifth of individual and 10 percent of corporate banking clients in the 10 major cities used online services.

Internet banking services include payments, purchases and transfers between bank accounts.

The CFCA report named Bank of Communications the best contributor to the development of Internet banking this year for its online fund products.

The report also said the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Merchants Bank and China Construction Bank offered the best online banking facilities, based on their Web infrastructure and services.

The CFCA signed a contract with over 30 commercial banks in 2005 to begin issuing digital certificates in a move aimed at improving the security of online payments to get more people using Internet banking.

The CFCA agreed to pay a maximum of 800,000 yuan to companies and 20,000 yuan to individuals to compensate for any loss to do with the certification.

(China Daily December 14, 2007)