April 15, 2008 -- HSBC Bank (China) Co. Ltd. is set to open its Zhengzhou branch by August this year, according to a local spokesman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC).

The CBRC approved on March 4 the bank's application to put up the Zhengzhou branch, state-owned People Newswire reported last month. A spokesman of the CBRC Zhengzhou Bureau told Emerging China it would take about six months to complete the branch opening. "Subsequently, the establishment of the new branch still needs to get the approval from the Zhengzhou Bureau," the spokesman, who was not willing to reveal his name, said.

"All the preparatory work is going smoothly, since we just got the approval from the CBRC," Carol Guo, spokesperson of HSBC's Shanghai office, told Emerging China. The bank's technical staff has begun site selection around the city's central business district, according to People Newswire.

HSBC will be the first foreign bank to locate at the Henan provincial capital. It was the first to operate in central China, where it already has branches in Changsha, Hunan Province and one in Wuhan, Hubei Province. The bank has 66 operating outlets all over China, considered to be the largest service network among foreign banks in the country.

HSBC is a global banking and financial services brand. It is present in 83 countries through some 10,000 offices spread across the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa.

"The bank can promote the local financial industry quite a bit," Zhicheng Qiu, an analyst with Haitong Securities Co. Ltd., told Emerging China. HSBC's entry will bring in high-end financial services and provide customized services to the local people, according to Qiu.