Four foreign banks were set Monday to formally open locally incorporated subsidiaries in China but the lenders cannot yet handle the type of business they were set up to do, the Wall Street Journal reported. Citigroup, HSBC, Standard Chartered and the Bank of East Asia are the first foreign banks to launch local units after China opened its banking sector to competition in December as per its agreement to enter the World Trade Organization in 2001. The banks should eventually be able to take deposits and make loans in renminbi, but they must still go through a period of inspection by the China Banking Regulatory Commission. There were no details of how long this inspection period will last but bank officials expected the full licenses to be approved soon.
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