HSBC Holdings has become the first foreign lender to be allowed to establish a bank in the mainland's rural areas, just seven months after the banking regulator eased a ban on offshore financial institutions offering banking services to vast and underdeveloped non-urban areas.
HSBC has been allowed to open a branch in Hubei province's Cengdu county, an area covering 6,900 square kilometres and with a population of two million, the lender said in a statement yesterday.
The rural banking service will be delivered through the newly established HSBC Rural Bank.
Choosing inland Hubei province over well-developed coastal provinces such as Jiangsu and Zhejiang was not HSBC's decision, because the company was offered Hubei as the only option.
'We are happy with the licence we've got and we are happy with [the place] we have been given,' HSBC press officer Vinh Tran said.
HSBC is the first foreign bank to set up shop in the countryside as part of renewed efforts by the central government to lift the economies of poor regions by 2010.