A booming stock market has boosted growth in online trading services in China this year as an increasing number of investors turned to the Internet to trade stocks and funds, according to local press reports.
Online trading has emerged as an important tactic for banks, attracting customers tempted by the country's growing stock market.
A rising number of banks in the country have launched online trading services in response to the soaring Chinese markets and the massive growth in Web banking in the country in recent years.
The China Financial Certification Authority (CFCA) estimates there are 74.95 million online banking users in China, with average growth doubling annually in the past five years.
A report by the CFCA - based on a survey of 2500 individual and 2000 corporate banking clients in 10 cities - found that around a third of individual and corporate banking clients in China's 10 major cities used online services this year. This represents a rise of 4.2% on 2006 for individuals and 1.7% for institutional investors.
Furthermore, earlier this year the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) reported a massive jump in the value of online banking transactions to Yn2.7 trillion in the first nine months this year, up 230% on 2006.