Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) saw its online individual client figure increase by 9.41 million in the first half of 2008, up 27 percent over the same period last year.

Online individual clients of the country's biggest lender hit 48.49 million by June, said the ICBC on Thursday.

Meanwhile, online business accounted for 39.5 percent of the lender's total business volume.

Online enterprise clients hit 1.27 million by June, represented an increase of 294,200 during the January-June period, or 54 percent over the same period last year.

The ICBC attributed the remarkable increase to the bank's efforts in introducing more business products, and perfecting an online transaction system, which better met the demand of clients.

According to the bank's statistics, online transaction volume stood at 102.9 trillion yuan (14.7 trillion U.S. dollars) last year, up 127 percent over 2006.

(Xinhua News Agency  July 18, 2008)