Strong innovation
As the first JV bank in China, the XIB pioneered in reforming and improving Xiamen's financial services concept and standards, thus attracting more foreign capital to the coastal city.
These moves have greatly boosted local economic development, enhanced the city's investment environment and strengthened the confidence of foreign investors, said Huang.
Japanese-funded Panasonic Manufacturing Xiamen Co and ABB Xiamen Switchgear Co, the first JV company founded by Switzerland-based ABB in China in 1992, were among the list of early customers that XIB provided financial services to, which are still running to this day.
The bank also innovated in introducing lower-counter, more intimate customer service desks to clients. Before that, there were handrails between bank staff and clients.
The earliest investment in the bank came from Luso International Banking in Macao, as well a listed company in Hong Kong.
And in 1991, XIB increased its capital by introducing international financial organizations and strategic investors from developed countries and regions, being the first domestic bank to do so.
Its overseas shareholders included Japan's Shinsei Bank with 10 percent, the Asian Development Bank with 10 percent and US-based Sino Finance Group Co with 5 percent.
"By introducing such overseas capital, XIB has forged a core competitiveness different from the old State-owned banks. This is a market-driven mechanism, which includes a market operation concept, modern corporate governance structure, advanced risk control concepts and so on, paving the way for the development of the domestic banking system later on," Huang noted.
"Furthermore, many domestic banks were enlightened by XIB's introduction of foreign capital, which sparked great interest on the Chinese mainland, as they began to follow the trend by seeking investment from overseas," he said.
Due to the restriction on JV banks in doing yuan retail business in China while having just ended its historical role as the "test ground" for financial reform, XIB transformed into a Chinese city commercial bank in 2013.
An open future
China has been gradually opening up its financial sector, with authorities pledging to ease caps on foreign ownership in Chinese banks and financial asset management companies "within a few months," Yi Gang, governor of the PBOC, said at the Boao Forum for Asia back in April.
Chen Wenhui, vice chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, was quoted as saying in a report by the Xinhua News Agency in May that opening-up in the banking and insurance sectors will help optimize the allocation of financial resources, so that they can better serve the real economy.
There is still ample room for the domestic financial sector to gradually open up while the process also indicates China's increasing confidence in the sector's development and its business environment, Huang believes.
Wang Yong, an associate professor at Xiamen University, told the Global Times on Monday that as a strategic city for the China-proposed Belt and Road (B&R) initiative, Xiamen should connect more with countries and regions along the routes by making more ambitious moves in the financial sector.
Also, Xiamen has natural advantages in developing financial cooperation with Taiwan, Wang said, noting there are currently about 4,000 Taiwan-headquartered enterprises in Xiamen that need bank loans.
"Although the official exchange channel between the mainland and Taiwan has been suspended, the cross-Straits nongovernmental financial communications won't stop," he said, adding it is inevitable that Taiwan's economic development will be integrated into the B&R initiative.
