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ICBC was founded on 1 January 1984 as the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. Its creation followed a September 1983 State Council decision to separate commercial banking from the People’s Bank of China, leaving the latter to become the country’s central bank. ICBC became the last and largest member of China’s “Big Four” state banks, alongside Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, and China Construction Bank.

At first, ICBC focused on industrial lending and household deposits, using the branch network inherited from the People’s Bank. In 1993, it opened its first overseas branch in Singapore, followed by Luxembourg in 1999. Rapid growth came with a burden: loans to state enterprises, often issued by directive, left the major state banks with bad-loan ratios estimated at up to 40% by the late 1990s.

In 1998, China’s Ministry of Finance issued 270 billion yuan in special treasury bonds to recapitalize the banks. In 1999, four asset-management companies bought troubled loans from bank balance sheets. In December 2004, Huijin Investment injected $15 billion into ICBC. On 28 October 2005, the bank became a joint-stock company with state control intact.

In April 2006, Goldman Sachs, Allianz, and American Express invested $3.78 billion in ICBC, with Goldman Sachs taking 7% for $2.58 billion and advising on governance and risk. On 27 October 2006, ICBC raised $21.9 billion through a Hong Kong and Shanghai IPO, surpassing NTT DoCoMo’s 1998 record. In 2008, ICBC bought a 20% stake in South Africa’s Standard Bank for $5.5 billion. By 2011, it led global banks by market value, ahead of JPMorgan Chase.