World's biggest bank steps up expansion

Yang Kaisheng.

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China gets more profit growth overseas, says former chief executive.

The world's largest bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, is stepping up its international expansion to offset China's slowing economic growth, according to former chief executive Yang Kaisheng.

Yang - who was in Auckland recently - noted the profitability of China's banks was reducing because of the slowdown of the Chinese economy. But Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) was speeding up its allocation of assets overseas because the growth of profitability of the bank's overseas operations was "much, much higher".

ICBC (NZ) opened in Auckland last year. Its chairman is former Reserve Bank governor Don Brash.

The Chinese bank's capital base in New Zealand is relatively small compared to the Australian-owned trading banks that dominate here. But Yang expects it to be in profit within a year or two.

This follows the pattern established in other markets like Australia where ICBC has been operating for seven years and further afield in the 60 countries and territories in which the bank has operations and boasts assets of US$300 billion which would see those operations alone ranking among the world's top 100 banks.

Yang promotes ICBC as a bridge for bilateral trade and economic co-operation which will step up as Beijing develops its flagship One Belt, One Road initiative to enhance the economic integration with more than 40 countries across Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

Moody's recently reported the initiative would be "credit positive" for the emerging market sovereigns involved. The initiative is also expected to advance China's strategic soft power goals and offset the country's economic slowdown.

"I believe One Belt, One Road will benefit not only ICBC but also the society and economy of New Zealand," Yang said.

He spoke obliquely about China's moves to further liberalise its capital account noting that already the sharemarkets in Shanghai and Hong Kong were connected and RMB bonds were issued both domestically and in offshore markets.

"I believe all these are signals of the opening up of Chinese capital markets," he added. "I believe that process will be continuous."

ICBC is currently a global leader in terms of deposit, loan, total assets, tier 1 capital, operating revenue, profit and brand value.

But the bank does face challenges and difficulties in China, Yang says. He cites interest margins that still make up a big share of ICBC's profitability and believes operations need to be restructured to gain more revenue through commissions and fees. In comments to ICBC's local staff, he said that currently the bank has 450,000 employees and 17,000 domestic outlets and must move more of its business transactions on to the e-banking system.

Yang describes China's macro-economic environment as complicated.

"The truth is in the past 30 years, the growth rate of China's GDP is about double digit on the average, this is rare around the world and also in the history," he said.

"However, we also observed a very obvious shift in that the growth rate of GDP of China is slowing down. The figure for the first half of this year is 7 per cent ... however we are still at relatively high speed as compared to the economies around the world especially those major economies."

Yang cites manufacturing statistics, export volumes growth, the unemployment rate of 4-5 per cent and the growth rate of urban incomes (this exceeds the GDP growth rate) as reasons for optimism.

"As long as we are doing fine in the employment market, as long as the income of people is still increasing, we are comfortable with the macro economy in China," he said.

"Other challenges we are facing including export, because the world economy is not recovering very well.

"We [need] to boost our domestic consumption demand because currently the desire and the willingness of the Chinese to consume still needs to be further encouraged," he added.

"I believe all the reformative measures taken by the government will produce benefits in the long run and it will boost the economic growth in China."

Yang on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations

• "China is open-minded about globalisation. But frankly speaking, whether or not China is going to join in the TPP is not solely dependent on China itself."

• "I guess that the US is trying to exclude China from this mechanism. I think currently that China is already the world's second largest economy. If you are trying to exclude China from any economic and trade arrangements it will be unrealistic and unwise."

• "I think China is willing to step up its economic and trade co-operation with countries around the world."

• "That philosophy of China is already reflected in the establishing of the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank and the putting forward of One Belt, One Road."

• "I also believe AIIB itself is an open organisation. It is not excluding and it is not intending to compete with any other multilateral organisations."

- Yang Kaisheng
Former chief executive of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and special adviser to the China Banking Regulatory Commission.