China Bohai Bank () is a

commercial bank A commercial bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and gives loans for the purposes of consumption and investment to make a profit. It can also refer to a bank or a division of a larger bank that deals with whol ...

Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...

, China. Established on December 31, 2005, and opened for business in February 2006. The bank had a registered capital of and net equity of as of 31 December 2015.

History

The bank was the brainchild of the Tianjin mayor (and previous head of the Peoples Bank of China) Dai Xianglong who turned a national banking licence for Tianjin, that had been promised to the city in the mid-1990s, into reality and in the process kicking off an important upgrading of the Tianjin financial system. This was the 1st national banking licence to have been approved by the State Council since China Minsheng Bank in 1995. The precondition for the national licence, stipulated by the regulators, was that foreign expertise should be brought in to ensure that the bank could herald a new era for Chinese banking following the modern organisational design of western banks, in particular the risk management system and product development approach. In turn a small set up team was formed from local bank officials, led by Mr Sun Li Guo, and a beauty contest was held for the foreign banking partner.

Standard Chartered Hong Kong Standard Chartered Hong Kong (officially Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Limited, ) is a licensed bank incorporated in Hong Kong and a subsidiary of Standard Chartered. It is also one of the three commercial banks licensed by the Hong Kong M ...

was selected as Strategic investor and a 19.99% shareholding was agreed. Other investors included TEDA Holding,

COSCO China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) was a former shipping corporation from 1961 to 2016, owned by the State Council of the People's Republic of China, State Council of China. The company merged with China Shipping Group, China Shipping Grou ...

, Baosteel Group, State Development & Investment Corporation, with TEDA taking the lead role with a 25% shareholding. The first appointed official of the bank was from Standard Chartered, an Englishman, Mr Simon Page, the chief risk officer who took up the post in October 2004. The head of Wholesale Bank was a Swiss national, Mr Rolf Berweger. A group of officials and technical experts from Standard Chartered Bank joined the set up team and the preparation for the bank began under the guidance of the project director Mr Clive Haswell, pulling together business strategy, technical & IT infrastructure, policies and procedures. In August 2005, the chairman and chief executive were selected, Mr Yang Zi Lin and Mr Ma Teng and the business licence was approved on 31 December 2005. The chief financial officer, Mrs Guo Rong Li, chief technology officer, Mr Liu Zheng Quan, head of Consumer Bank, Mr Phang Yew Kiat were also appointed. The first branch opened in Tianjin on 16 February 2006 and offered basic retail banking deposit services and corporate banking lending, trade and deposit services.

References

External links

* Companies based in Tianjin Chinese companies established in 2005 Banks established in 2005 Baowu Companies owned by provincial governments of China Government-owned banks of China 2005 in Tianjin {{China-company-stub