Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行), the nation's biggest state-run bank, will soon submit its application to the Ministry of Finance (MOF) to expand into China, the bank's president Lii Sheng-yann (李勝彥) said yesterday.
"In early May, the bank's board approved a plan to set up branches in Shanghai," Lii told reporters yesterday at the MOF.
Lii shrugged off media speculation that Chinese authorities are unlikely to approve the bank's application since it explicitly carries the name of Taiwan -- a politically incorrect word in China's eyes -- in its title. Instead, he said "progress on the expansion plan will depend on [how efficient] China's review process is."
So far, six Taiwanese banks are still awaiting approval from China to establish liaison offices there while two -- Chang Hwa Bank (
The bank is already providing financial services to Taiwanese business people in China through a network of offshore banking units (OBU) run by foreign banks there.
William Teng (
"Our bank's transaction efficiency [across the Strait] meets [customer] demand," Teng said.
Teng added that the bank is currently building a cross-strait money transfer system with China's four government-owned banks -- the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (工商銀行), the China Construction Bank (建設銀行), the Agricultural Bank of China (農業銀行) and the Bank of China (中國銀行) -- to take advantage of the banks' many branches and to provide better service to Taiwanese businessmen there.
Yesterday, market analysts said that the bank's expansion plan demonstrates that last year's merger plan with the Land Bank of Taiwan (
If the merger was still going ahead, the analysts said, Bank of Taiwan would not need to apply separately for a permit to expand its operations in China.
Bank of Taiwan may have failed to propose an expansion plan because its would-be partner, Land Bank, has already made a proposal and the three banks would belong to the same yet-to-be-established financial holding company.
The bank's announcement yesterday echoed Vice Finance Minister Wang Te-san's (
Lii refused to confirm the news yesterday but said "[the bank] may expand its business scope and establish a financial holding company by itself."
In a bid to improve its competitiveness, Lii said that the bank may begin offering low-priced financial services, including the lowest interest rate in Taiwan, to expand its customer base in the private sector.
The bank, which had a 3.34 percent non-performing loan (NPL) ratio as of April, granted over 55 percent of its loans to the government and state-run enterprises. Due to the government's streamlining policies, the bank's lending shrank by NT$80 billion last year.
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