The planned joint venture will be 25 percent owned by the UOB, while the controlling stake will be in the hands of its Chinese counterpart.

"So far, we have already talked with several potential partners. But the talks are all in very early stages. We hope there will a deal as soon as possible," said Wee Choyaw, chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of UOB.

Early reports suggest one of UOB's possible partners is the Fujian Industrial Bank, one of the middle-sized commercial banks with headquarters in East China's Fujian Province.

His remarks were made on the sidelines of the opening ceremony of UOB's Beijing branch.

The branch is the first belonging to a foreign financial institution to open in the capital, following China's World Trade Organization accession and is UOB's fifth branch in China. The other four are in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Xiamen. The bank also has a representative office in Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan Province.

The branch plans to offer a wide range of financial services in other currencies to foreigners, foreign-funded companies and other institutions, but it will not be able to offer renminbi services to both local and foreign customers.

According to regulations released by the central bank, foreign financial institutions cannot conduct renminbi businesses until they have maintained a branch in a city for at least three years.

The financial services available will be both retail and wholesale services, including foreign exchange services, deposits and lending, remittance, treasury bond trading, financial bond trading, letters of credit and guarantee services.

The bank will also provide domestic and international currency settlements, foreign exchange trading and agenting, inter-bank borrowing and lending, bank cards, cash box services, information investigation and consulting services.

These services are also available to people from the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions and Taiwan Province and companies invested by firms from these regions.

The bank also got the green-light from the central bank to offer foreign exchange settlements and lending and borrowing services to domestic companies.

(China Daily November 7, 2002)