Indian Express
Express India
Screen
Loksatta
Express Cricket
Kashmir Live
Biz Publications
Indian Express |
Express India |
Screen |
Loksatta |
Express Cricket |
Kashmir Live |
Biz Publications |
|
: China may resist calls by the US government to relax restrictions on foreign ownership of its banks, a person familiar with the matter said. Chinese rules limit overseas ownership of local lenders to 25%, with a 20% ceiling for any individual foreign investor. The government may consider loosening the curbs in special cases, such as a bank being in distress, the person said, declining to be identified as deliberations are private.
China's stance is a setback for outgoing US Treasury secretary Henry Paulson, who has pushed for more access to a nation that's home to three of the world's four largest banks by market value. US lenders have hung on to their investments in China, even as they sold assets and cut jobs elsewhere to cope with the global credit crisis, and Bank of America Corp this month spent about $7 billion to double its holding in China Construction Bank Corp.
"Foreign banks remain very interested in investing in Chinese lenders, even in the current circumstances,'' said Liao Qiang, a Beijing-based analyst at Standard & Poor's. The restrictions bar HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe's largest bank, from becoming a controlling shareholder in China's fifth- biggest lender, Bank of Communications Ltd. London-based HSBC has said it wants to raise its holding in BoCom to 19.9% from the current 18.6%.
HSBC also has an option, which took effect in August, to lift its stake to 40% should Chinese rules permit.
China may raise the ceiling on foreign investment in its trust companies to 33% for both single-investor or combined foreign ownership, the person said. The relaxation aims to speed the growth of an industry still plagued by poor risk management and irregularities after government-led consolidations in the past two decades, the person said. In total, foreign investors paid $21.3 billion for stakes in 25 Chinese banks, according to the nation's banking regulator. Foreign banks operating in China have fared better. Their total profit more than doubled to 10.1 billion yuan ($1.47 billion) in the first nine months this year, buoyed by an expanding economy.
Discuss this story on expressindia forums
|
|
 |
 |
 |
About Us | Contact Us | Advertisers | Site Map | Make us your homepage | Work for Us | RSS | Subscribe | Electronic Edition | Privacy Policy© 2009: Indian Express Newspapers (Mumbai) Ltd. All rights reserved throughout the world
