Chinese financial companies should lay stress on building their brands, as the brand competitiveness has become increasingly important, Wu Nianlu, vice president of the China International Finance Society, said Saturday.

The brand image represented the overall quality of a company, Wu said, when addressing the "2008 China Financial Marketing Awarding Ceremony" organized by the Chinese Banker magazine here.

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country's leading lender, Bank of Communications, the country's fifth largest commercial bank, China Merchants Bank, the country's sixth largest lender and China Life Insurance won the best corporate image awards.

"With the technology progress and the changing of market demands, Chinese financial institutions also need to provide customers with new financial products," he added.

Qin Chijiang, an expert of finance, said currently Chinese financial firms had created more tailor-made products and services compared with the past.

However, there was still big room for these companies to improve in terms of products safety, inter-bank resource sharing and service professionalism, Qin added.

Source: Xinhua