Zhang Yu

JeniZhang13@163.com

CHINA CITIC Bank launched its upgraded service system for the elderly at a press conference held in Shenzhen on Thursday, voicing its aspirations to grab a bigger slice of China’s vast seniors’ market, better known as the silver economy.

The revamped service system, based on a comprehensive financial platform composed of the bank, trust, securities and insurance units under CITIC Group, aims to ameliorate the tailored services for the elderly, the Hong Kong and Shanghai-listed bank said.

The system features the issuance of China’s first credit card exclusively for the elderly, which has raised the upper age limit to 70, as well as mobile banking and around-the-clock health consultation services.

Xie Zhibin, vice president of China CITIC Bank, said that the bank is also ratcheting up to map out a personal pension service system covering pension preparation and utilization periods.

China CITIC Bank is the first bank to launch a financial service system for the aged in the domestic banking industry. In 2009, the bank issued the first exclusive debit card for the elderly in China.

China is facing an increasing aging population. As of the end of 2018, China had a population of 249 million aged 60 or above, accounting for 17.9 percent of the total, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.

According to data from iMedia Research, the market scale of China’s silver economy exceeded 3.7 trillion yuan (US$536.3 billion) last year and will reach 5.7 trillion yuan by 2021.