By Shangguan Zhoudong

Four overseas banks, which were incorporated locally in March, collected 4.33 billion yuan (US$566 million) in savings from their Shanghai branches in April, says a report issued by the central bank's second headquarters in Shanghai yesterday, according to Beijing Times.

The four overseas banks, namely HSBC Bank (China) Co Ltd, Standard Chartered Bank (China) Ltd, Bank of East Asia (China) Ltd, and Citibank (China) Co Ltd, also recorded 410 million yuan in new household renminbi deposits in April in Shanghai, the report says.

The four foreign banks started operations on April 3, in a move to tap into China's 30 trillion yuan in household savings.

China will also allow foreign banks to issue their own renminbi-denominated credit and debit cards immediately, in accordance with a decision reached at the China-US Strategic Economic Dialogue recently.

In addition to the four overseas lenders, Hong Kong-based Hang Seng Bank and Singapore's DBS Group Holdings also said recently that they had received approval from China's banking regulator to incorporate locally.

Mizuho Corporate Bank, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd, ABN AMRO, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp, JPMorgan Chase Bank and Wing Hang Bank are preparing to register their local subsidiaries in Shanghai, Beijing or Shenzhen.

(chinadaily.com.cn)