The largest public sector bank of in India, State bank of India is planning to open a representative office in Guangzhou (China). The bank already has a branch in Shanghai and representative office in Tianjin .The bank has however planned to upgrade the representative office to a branch.
It can be noted that already a few Indian banks have their branches in China. Allahabad bank, a state owned Kolkata based bank has also announced extending it’s branch network in China recently.
“A foreign bank can approach the China Banking Regulatory Commission for upgrading a rep office to a branch upon completion of two years of operations,” said a bank official.
A foreign bank in China can take upto 5 years to turn into profit , a senior public sector official pointed that the bank has to be prepared for a long haul there.
