中行擬在亞洲擴大業務 Bank of China looks to build a towering presence in Asia

It is sometimes said that Bank of China’s Hong Kong skyscraper was designed to allow its bosses physically to look down on HSBC’s headquarters.

有時人們說，香港中銀大廈的設計是爲了讓中國銀行(BoC)的老闆們可以俯視匯豐(HSBC)香港總部。

Officially, BoC’s IM Pei-designed masterpiece is meant to evoke the bamboo with its symbolic strength. Finished four years after HSBC’s Norman Foster edifice, there is, however, no doubt that BoC towers over its rival, at least in Hong Kong.

官方說法是，出自貝聿銘(IM Pei)之手的香港中銀大廈在設計上仿照竹樹不斷向上生長，象徵着力量和生機。其建成時間要比諾曼輠斯特(Norman Foster)設計的匯豐香港總部大廈晚四年，然而，毫無疑問，中銀高出了競爭對手一頭（至少在香港）。

Yet beyond the mainland, BoC has always been dwarfed by the commercial reach of its biggest rivals in Asia, including HSBC. Recent moves suggest it wants to change that — and this could be an auspicious time for one of the Chinese banks to aim for the international heft they so far lack.

然而，在中國境外，中行在商業觸角範圍上一直比不上最大的一些亞洲競爭對手，包括匯豐。中行最近的行動表明，它想改變這一局面，而現在可能正是中資銀行尋求迄今仍不足的國際影響力的大好時機。

Last week Bank of China Hong Kong put itsNanyang commercial subsidiary up for sale for $8.7bn. The proceeds will be used to absorb Southeast Asian assets from its mainland parent. As a result, BoC’s international presence will be contained in one outwardly-focused unit just as China gears up for a massive overseas infrastructure lending boom. Put the two together,and BoC, through its Hong Kong operations, has thepotential to put down the roots of a genuine overseaspresence.

上週，中銀香港(Bank of China Hong Kong)將旗下的南洋商業銀行(NCB)掛牌出售，售價87億美元。所得資金將被用於吸收其內地母公司在東南亞地區的資產。因此，伴隨中國準備發起大規模的海外基建貸款熱潮，中行的國際業務將被納入一個向外聚焦的部門。兩者相結合，中行通過其香港分支，將具有讓其真正的海外擴張生根發芽的潛力。

A pan-Asian banking business is the dream of many lenders as private credit in the region looks likely to outstrip that of the US in the next decade. But the most striking point about the current reality is that most local giants are largely confined to their home markets — and the competition mainly comes from HSBC, Citigroup and Standard Chartered.

建立遍及全亞洲的銀行業務是許多貸款機構的夢想，該地區的私營部門信貸規模有望在未來10年超過美國。但當前格局最引人注目的一點是，多數當地大型銀行在很大程度上侷限於本國市場，而競爭主要來自匯豐、花旗集團(Citigroup)和渣打銀行(Standard Chartered)。

If wishing, or balance sheet size, made it so, then this would not be the case. Half of the world’s top 10 banks by assets are Asian, including BoC, China’s other Big Four banks and Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Group(MUFG). HSBC, JPMorgan, BNP Paribas, Barclays and Bank of America round out the list.

這種局面應該不是願望（或者資產負債表規模）的產物。世界資產規模最大的10家銀行有一半在亞洲，包括中國銀行、中國四大銀行中的其餘三家以及日本三菱UFJ金融集團(MUFG)。榜單的另一半包括匯豐、摩根大通(JPMorgan)、法國巴黎銀行(BNP Paribas)、巴克萊(Barclays)和美國銀行(Bank of America)。

The main stumbling blocks for banks with pan-Asian ambitions, both local and western, have been a lack of genuine local presence in both financial and physical terms. Without local deposits to fund lending, banks take on currency risk in a region that knows all too well what pain the markets can inflict. The strength of HSBC, Citi and StanChart is based on their decades-old presence in many countries — something that is increasingly hard to replicate.

對於擁有泛亞洲雄心的銀行（包括當地的和西方的）來說，主要障礙在於它們在金融和機構兩方面都缺乏真正的當地地盤。沒有當地存款爲貸款提供資金，銀行要承擔匯率風險，而這一地區深知匯市可以造成怎樣的痛苦。匯豐、花旗和渣打的實力建立在它們在許多國家數十年打造的地盤基礎上，而這種模式越來越難以複製。