A Study On Competitiveness Of China's Four Major Commercial Banks

With Agricultural Bank of China, which is the last state-owned bank, listed on both the Shanghai and Hong Kong Stock Market, all four traditionally state-owned banks have finished their joint stock reform, indicating that reform of Chinese financial system has entered to a new stage. Due to the historical background of state-owned banks, having them listed on the capital market is beneficial to the improvement of overall competitiveness of state-owned banks; however, many uncertainties remain in the future. With the faster pace of the economic globalization and the continuous opening up policy of Chinese financial market, four big commercial banks in China not only face fierce competition from newly developed joint-stock banks, as well as the challenges from foreign banks who are gradually recovering from the global financial crisis. How to maintain the relative strength under the context of reforming and post-financial crisis? Are there some issues unsolved during the reform and requires further development? How to improve the overall competitiveness of state-owned banks in the international platform? The key to these issues have great significance to the welling being and development of four big commercial banks.The study first had a review of the historical background of the state-owned ianks. Taking the reform process of Bank of China as an example, it introduced the general reform model of state-owned banks in China. Next, by adopting the factor analysis and index analysis, it compared the big four commercial banks with the newly born stock joint banks, and four major banks in US. Based on that, the conclusion of the reality competitiveness of the four commercial banks can be drawn. It further discussed the governance and organizational structure of four big commercial banks so as to compare the potential competitiveness. In the end, it proposed internal and external strategies, as well as the particular strategies in post financial crisis period, which is beneficial for the further improvement of four commercial banks.