China further opens access for foreign banks

China will widen the opening-up of its financial sector by relaxing control over market access for foreign-funded banks, the State Council announced on Saturday in its latest decision to revise regulations on the administration of such banks.

According to previous regulations issued in 2006, when a wholly foreign-funded bank or a Chinese-foreign joint venture bank establishes a branch in China, the branch shall receive from its parent bank a non-callable allocation of no less than 100 million yuan ($16 million) or an equivalent amount in convertible currencies as its operating capital.

That requirement on the amount of noncallable allocation of operating capital has been removed from the revised regulations, effective as of Jan 1.