When China Construction Bank (CCB) paid HK$9.7billion last year for the Hong Kong and Macau branches of Bank of America (Asia), it was making a clear statement of intent.
With a predominant position in the mainland market, represented by a network of nearly 14,000 branches and about 150 million active deposit accounts, the bank has seen the importance of building a stronger international presence.
'The principal driver was to have a readily available platform to expand beyond China,' said Samuel Tsien, president and chief executive of the renamed entity, China Construction Bank (Asia).
Mr Tsien said Hong Kong was the obvious starting point for this expansion strategy.
'CCB's intention is no different from the major [Chinese] corporations,' he said. 'From the perspective of flows in trade, people and capital, they are all going abroad so, as a bank, you should follow. You can no longer be an entity of that size and remain purely domestic.'
He noted that, to date, much of China's overseas investment had been in government instruments. In future, though, it seemed sure there would be greater focus on opportunities in the industrial sector in various parts of the world. For this reason, mainland banks had to position themselves globally to support such deals.
