ICBC to open 5 branches in Europe

ICBC continues overseas expansion despite being slow to follow their traditional clients abroad.

Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. plans to open five branches in Europe over the next two weeks, more than doubling the European presence of China's biggest lender in its latest move to establish a global footprint.

ICBC will open branches in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Milan this week, and Madrid the week after, a spokesman for the bank said in response to questions from The Wall Street Journal.

The bank already has a presence in London, Moscow, Luxembourg and Frankfurt. The spokesman said the new branches will offer retail and commercial-banking services.

In the wake of the global financial crisis, Chinese firms have rapidly expanded internationally, presenting a huge opportunity for the country's banks to grow their overseas operations. But China's banks so far have been slow to follow their traditional clients abroad, constrained by inexperience in international markets, restrictions imposed by overseas regulators, and a conservative domestic regulatory regime wary of the banks moving too fast. Still, the banks' expansion is starting to pick up pace, with ICBC entering Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and Canada last year.

ICBC has been more active than other Chinese banks in expanding abroad, focusing for the most part on building a presence in Asia. In recent years, it has taken over small retail banks in Indonesia and Thailand, rebranding both with ICBC's name. That has given it a network of fewer than 20 branches in each country, adding to the small network it set up on its own in about 10 other countries across Asia and the Middle East. In addition, it took over Bank of East Asia Ltd.'s collection of about six branches in Canada last year.

View the full story in The Wall Street Journal.