Banking News
- Beijing News
Date: 27-Mar-2007 Sources: (Shenzhen Daily)
DEUTSCHE Bank said yesterday it had decided to apply for local incorporation in China and to locate its headquarters in Beijing.
Deutsche said it had notified the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) of its intent to incorporate locally, a requirement for foreign banks to be allowed fuller access to the country's retail banking market, which boasts about US$2 trillion in household deposits.
'Local incorporation is an important step in the implementation of our China strategy,'Lee Zhang, chairman of Deutsche Bank China, said in a statement. 'We are already well positioned for expansion and local incorporation will allow us to accelerate our growth plans across all product lines.'
Deutsche would maintain a foreign currency booking branch in Shanghai, the statement said.
Under regulations issued late last year, foreign banks in China are subjected to a range of restrictions, including only being allowed to take deposits of more than 1 million yuan (US$129,000) from a Chinese retail customer and not being allowed to issue credit cards.
They are not subject to those restrictions if they incorporate locally.
Most of the major global banks operating in China have decided to take that route, despite a 1 billion yuan capital requirement and local asset-liability requirements. The banking regulator said last week that it had granted final approval to four banks to start locally incorporated businesses - namely Citigroup Inc., HSBC Holdings Plc, Standard Chartered and Hong Kong's Bank of East Asia.
The CBRC also said that eight other banks were going through the incorporation process.
They are Hang Seng Bank, Mizuho Corporate Bank, Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ, DBS, ABN AMRO, Wing Hang Bank, Singapore's Overseas-Chinese Banking Corp and JPMorgan Chase.
By choosing Beijing as its headquarters, Deutsche is in the minority. Ten of the 12 banks mentioned by the CBRC last week are registering in Shanghai. Wing Hang Bank will incorporate in Shenzhen and JPMorgan Chase in Beijing.
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