Banks accelerating global expansion

China Construction Bank has steadily enhanced its ability to participate in international competition while supporting high-quality development and opening-up. The bank has promoted integrated operations of domestic and foreign currencies to better serve foreign trade, foreign investment and outbound enterprises. By the end of 2025, its international business loan balance amounted to 1.45 trillion yuan, up 27.47 percent year-on-year, while cross-border RMB settlements totaled 6.5 trillion yuan.

CCB has also advanced group integration and improved coordination between domestic and overseas operations. In 2025, its overseas institutions recorded a net profit of 12.04 billion yuan, up 31.74 percent year-on-year.

As China's industrial structure undergoes deep transformation and upgrading, Chinese enterprises are accelerating their global expansion, driving growing demand for diversified financial services such as cross-border financing, global cash management, and interest rate and exchange rate risk management. This requires financial services to keep pace.

Lyu Jiajin, chairman of Industrial Bank, said: "In the coming years, Chinese companies' overseas expansion will enter an accelerated phase. We must treat internationalization as the only path to expanding our reach, as a matter of vital importance to the success or failure of our business, and as an indispensable component of our customer service."

In 2025, Industrial Bank's Hong Kong branch saw rapid growth in both operating income and operating profit, increasing by 46 percent and 49 percent year-on-year, respectively.

Lyu said the bank aims to position internationalization as its "third transformation", alongside digitalization and green development, and to cultivate it into a new growth driver within the next few years.

He noted that Industrial Bank will advance this strategy by strengthening its organizational framework, including establishing a chairman-led task force, designating more than 10 domestic branches as key hubs for international business, setting up specialized subbranches, and leveraging its Hong Kong branch as a gateway to coordinate domestic and overseas expansion.

Meanwhile, the bank will enhance its services capabilities by building on strengths in tech finance, green finance, investment banking and financial markets, providing comprehensive, end-to-end financial services across markets to support companies going global.

It will also reinforce digital capabilities and risk control by upgrading cross-border payment, settlement and treasury management systems, applying artificial intelligence to improve efficiency and adhering to a prudent risk approach. Closer collaboration with research institutions and insurers will help strengthen end-to-end risk management and guard against legal, compliance and foreign exchange risks, ensuring steady and sustainable growth of its international business.

In 2025, overseas operating income of BOC, CCB, Agricultural Bank of China, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank and Ping An Bank all recorded double-digit growth. Notably, SPDB's operating income from its overseas and affiliated institutions rose from 10.74 billion yuan in the previous year to 16.48 billion yuan, marking a significant year-on-year increase of more than 53 percent. Growth rates for CCB and Ping An Bank also exceeded 20 percent.

ABC has continued to strengthen coordination between domestic and foreign currency operations and between onshore and offshore businesses, optimizing its cross-border financial service system. Its international settlement volume reached $1.64 trillion in 2025, up 8 percent year-on-year, while international trade financing grew by 30 percent.

Wang Wenjin, vice-president of the bank, said it will align with China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) to expand high-level opening-up and continue increasing support for the real economy in foreign trade.

ABC will work to build a closed-loop cross-border financial service system that supports high-quality Belt and Road cooperation and the global expansion of enterprises, while improving coordination between domestic and overseas operations, expanding the supply of cross-border products and strengthening financial support for key outbound investment projects.

At the same time, it will optimize its cross-border financial service system to help stabilize and upgrade foreign trade, increase support for high-quality agricultural entities, continue assisting small and micro businesses engaged in foreign trade, and develop innovative financing solutions for cross-border e-commerce alongside more diversified payment channels.

In addition, the lender will expand the provision of cross-border financial services, enrich foreign exchange risk management products and play a more active role in advancing RMB internationalization, Wang said.

jiangxueqing@chinadaily.com.cn