Yangtze River Delta Eyes Financial Integration
At the first Finance Forum of the Yangtz River Delta, jointly held by the governments of Shanghai and Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces and the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), 14 city commercial banks signed a strategic cooperation agreement on April 21, to strengthen cooperation in monetary transactions, settlement services, product innovation and risk management. These banks are: the Bank of Jiangsu, the Bank of Shanghai, the Shanghai-listed Bank of Nanjing, and other city banks based in surrounding areas, including Ningbo, Hangzhou and Wenzhou.
The aim of this integration is to build a platform for institutional coordination in the banking system, and thus accelerate the already booming economy of southeast China’s economic centre. In different cities, each bank has its own information and finance systems and promotes its own credit card. It has not only caused an enormous waste of resources, but also hindered the growth of the banking industry. The forum, as an external guidance and regulation, helps to build up the financial environment and conditions necessary for the further cooperation.
Four state-owned commercial banks, including the Bank of China, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank and the Agricultural Bank of China, have already initiated “cross-region business”, with each bank coordinating its own banking transactions in different provinces and cities.
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