하나은행 하나금융연구소

This report aims at looking into post-crisis changes in strategies of six major
financial groups in Asia which include Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group,
Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Mizuho Financial Group, Industrial and
Commercial Bank of China Limited (ICBC), Bank of China(BOC), and Agricultural
Bank of China.(ABC)

The leading financial groups in Asia seek to turn the crisis into opportunities
to make a leap forward on the global stage, with Chinese commercial banks
owned by the government recording notable growth.
- Relatively less affected by the financial crisis, major financial groups in Japan and
China became more aggressive in their strategy for business expansion and diversification,
and seek to gain a foothold to emerge as a global player.
- Asian companies have performed outstandingly after the crisis, with 7 making their
names listed on the global top 30 financial groups. In particular, ICBC ranked first
among the Asian groups, an indication that government-owned commercial banks
in China posted a remarkable growth driven by government-led reforms.

In general, they are aggressive in expanding business and advancing into
overseas markets by means of M&A, strategic alliance, and business portfolio
realignment, but are still considered weak in comparison with global leading
groups.
- (M&A) MUFG, SMFG, and ICBC were more aggressive than others in M&A deals,
but their target was usually limited to equity investment for strategic alliance and
small-scale M&A deals.
- (Business Structure) With more attention paid in general to non-banking sector
after the crisis, Japanese financial groups have focused more on the securities business
by establishing joint ventures or integrating affiliates, while Chinese companies
have been enthusiastic to enter into the insurance market with regulations allowing
them to own insurance business.
-(Global Business) Having long been dedicated to serving domestic markets,
Japanese and Chinese groups are now eager to reinforce their position as a global
player, but find themselves bound by their conventional business model mainly
targeting local companies and seeking internally-driven growth.
- (Reorganization) With less impact from the global financial crisis, most of them
have maintained existing organizational structures, but SMFG and Mizuho integrated
their own credit card and securities affiliates under each group as a way
to enhance competitiveness.

While aiming to achieve qualitative growth, moving beyond quantitative
growth, leading financial groups in Japan and China need to execute more
aggressive strategies in addition to current initiatives in order to consolidate
their position in the global market.
-In the pre-crisis era, they were in the same league with global leading financial
groups in terms of scale, but not in terms of quality due to their domestic market-
focused and quantitative growth-driven strategy.
-Under the circumstances, the Asian groups have eagerly reinforced their
non-banking business at home for business diversification, while actively pursuing
strategic alliance with global leaders, M&A, and subsidiary establishment to turn
the crisis into opportunities, which offers grounds for optimism.
- However, with most of them sticking to internally-driven growth strategy and
remaining supporting domestic companies for their overseas operations, they need
to come up with more aggressive strategies such as acquiring local financial institutions
as their counterparts in the UK and the US have done, in order to consolidate
their position as a global player.