Sina.com, CITIC sign on-line banking deal - paper
Sunday December 1, 9:36 pm ET

BEIJING, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Portal Sina.com (NasdaqNM:SINA - News) and China's CITIC Industrial Bank have signed a deal to boost their on-line financial services, the official China Daily newspaper reported on Monday.

The commercial bank, gearing up for a domestic stock listing in 2003, would help the Internet firm build an on-line payment system for its e-commerce business, it said.

CITIC, the sixth largest bank in China, sees Sina's 60 million registered users as potential customers, the paper said, adding the portal expected to tap into financial business as well.

Sina a narrow first-quarter loss in early November and said it was close to turning a full year profit in 2003.