ICBC sells 2 bln-yuan bonds in London

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the country's largest lender, announced on Wednesday that it has issued two billion yuan (326 million U.S. dollars) in bonds in London.

The issuance includes 1.3 billion yuan of three-year bonds and 700 million yuan of five-year bonds, with the coupon rate at 3.35 percent and 3.75 percent, respectively.

The bank said the funds will be used to expand the bank's yuan lending overseas.

ICBC was earlier this week added to the annual list of "global systemically important banks" published by the Financial Stability Board, an international organization monitoring and coordinating the world's financial systems.

In 2012, the Chinese banking giant topped the world's financial industry in the aspects of total assets, deposits, loans, tiers on capital, market value and profit.

Its overseas assets hit 182.2 billion U.S. dollars by the year's half-way mark, and its cross-border settlement of RMB exceeded 1.5 trillion yuan.