BANK of Beijing Co, part owned by ING Groep NV, said shareholders approved a plan to buy 20 percent of Langfang City Commercial Bank for 127.5 million yuan (US$18.4 million) to speed up expansion nationwide.
Bank of Beijing said yesterday it will buy 75 million new shares in Langfang Bank, based in the north China's province of Hebei, for 1.70 yuan each.
China's city banks, barred from expanding outside their hometowns until 2006, raised capital last year to fund new branches and acquisitions to compete with larger, better-capitalized rivals that have no geographic limits, Bloomberg News said.
Bank of Beijing, planning to build a nationwide network in three to five years, will first expand along the eastern coastal cities in the Bohai Rim and Yangtze River Delta regions, and Pearl River Delta in the south.
The bank, which has 131 branches in Beijing, will then move into the central western region and into Hong Kong and Macau, it said earlier.