国内英语新闻:CMB looks further abroad

"Our customers have now made a move out of the country. Shouldn't we follow?" Ma said.

In his eyes, the financial crisis of 2008 provided a good chance for Chinese banks to speed up their globalization. The deleveraging process of banks in Europe and the US is helping Chinese banks to expand their businesses, acquire other financial institutions and attract talent at a lower cost.

"We have equivalently strong products and services. What we need to improve is our management. We need to adopt a more advanced concept of management to better push forward the globalization," Ma said.

Besides sustaining its development in the US market, CMB will set up a representative office in Taipei later this year and continue to seek a chance to upgrade its London office, opened last year, to a branch in the near future, Ma said.

"In the mean time, we'll look into expanding to those Southeast Asian markets that share business most frequently with China," the senior banker said. "But we don't have a specific target market right now."

However, despite his ambitious plans overseas, the senior banker said the domestic market was still CMB's priority and the company was now under its second reform - to improve its risk-pricing ability and develop more small and medium-sized corporate customers.

Ma said he was optimistic about this year's profit prospects and added that the latest government policy to tighten home loans would "not impose much influence" on CMB "for the time being".