(Yicai Global) July 28 -- China's six largest state-owned lenders, including Industrial and Commercial Bank of China as well as Bank of China, closed nearly 840 branches and cut their headcounts by 11,500 last year as customers switch to online banking.

Almost 90 percent of all banking business could be done online in 2019, an increase of 1.1 percentage point from a year earlier, Science and Technology Daily reported today, citing data from the China Banking Association. The rate had been as low as 63 percent in 2017.

The value of online transactions rose 7 percent to a staggering CNY1,657.75 trillion (USD236.84 trillion) last year from a year ago with 163.8 billion transfers. The value of mobile transactions climbed nearly 39 percent to CNY335.63 trillion (USD48 trillion). Bank account holders bought CNY1.64 trillion (USD234.6 billion) worth of goods on e-commerce platforms.

More than 95 percent of retail banking business can be handled via mobile platforms and an increasing number of consumers prefer such convenience, said Dong Ximiao, a researcher at the National Institution for Finance and Development.

But banks will not disappear from high streets, said Wang Mancang, finance department director at Northwestern University's School of Economics and Management. Consumers still value real-world interaction and without branches, small and mid-sized lenders will have a hard time attracting clients, he added.

Editor: Emmi Laine