HANG Seng Bank Ltd is planning to double its local branch portfolio to 20 and expand its domestic network to 50 outlets by 2010, a senior official with the bank said yesterday in Shanghai.

"We wish to increase our outlets on the Chinese mainland ?? including branches and sub-branches ?? to as many as 36 by the end of this year and further expand to between 45 and 48 by 2009, and hopefully to 50 by 2010," said Johnson Fu, executive director and chief executive of Hang Seng Bank (China) Ltd yesterday.

He was speaking in Shanghai while attending the opening ceremony of its 10th outlet in the city, which is the 30th on the mainland.

The Hong Kong lender said it will continue to extend its footprint mainly in three areas of the country ?? the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta and the Bohai Rim, with the cities of Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing and Shenzhen being its main focus.

Hang Seng said it is also considering whether to issue yuan-denominated debit cards on the Chinese mainland directly after the Beijing Olympics, several months ahead of its original plan.

Wealth management services for individual customers have been growing very rapidly over the past year, the company said. Customer numbers have doubled during the period, and about 60 percent of its clients are from the Chinese mainland.

The bank, which established its local incorporation, Hang Seng Bank (China) Ltd, in Shanghai a year ago, has added 14 outlets in the country over the past 12 months. Hang Seng more than doubled its full-time mainland staff to 1,097 from 436 in 2007 while total operating income on the mainland grew by 69.4 percent.

Including its share of profit from Fujian Province-based Industrial Bank, mainland business contributed 6.5 percent to the bank's group profit before tax in 2007, the bank said in April.