UNITED Commercial Bank aims to grow its assets in China by nearly 10 times in five years by focusing on small and medium-sized banking.
The bank expects the China subsidiary's total assets to grow to US$3 billion in five years, said Thomas Wu, UCB's president and chief executive officer.
The bank opened its China subsidiary in Shanghai yesterday, based at the Business Development Bank it bought last year.
Before the merger, Business Development Bank's assets sat at about US$250 million.
US-based UCB bought the bank in December and renamed it United Commercial Bank (China) Ltd.
Wu expects UCB China's profits to at least double this year.
UCB targets a non-performing loan ratio of less than one percent in China.
UCB will open branches in Qingdao and Chengdu in at most two years and is considering expansion into Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Dongguan in southern China's Guangdong Province.
The bank also plans to open two sub-branches in Shanghai in two years to kick off retail banking for its clients.
"We will leverage our partner China Minsheng Banking Corp's about 300 outlets network in China and save the efforts to expand network broadly by ourselves," said Wu.
The Beijing-based Minsheng Bank said on March 3 that it had gained regulatory approval to buy 4.9 percent stake of UCBH Holdings, the holding company for UCB.
China Minsheng Banking will buy up to a 20-percent stake of UCBH.