An urban commercial bank () or city-based commercial bank refers to a type of

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

in China operating locally with significant shares from the local government. Founded as urban credit cooperatives in 1980s, it aimed to provide funds for local

small and medium-sized enterprises Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are businesses whose personnel and revenue numbers fall below certain limits. The abbreviation "SME" is used by international organizations such as the World Bank ...

and stimulate local economy. There are currently 162 urban commercial banks operating across China. In 2017, the total assets and liabilities of all urban commercial banks combined was 31721.7 billion yuan, making up 12.70% of all Chinese banks. Typical examples include

Bank of Beijing Bank of Beijing Co., Ltd. (abb. BOB) is an urban commercial bank based in Beijing, China. According to the bank, most of the revenue came from Beijing, despite that the banking group had more than half of the branches located outside the direct- ...

Bank of Shanghai Bank of Shanghai Co., Ltd. (BOSC) is an urban commercial bank based in Shanghai in China. The bank was ranked 73rd among 1000 banks around the world by '' The Banker'' in terms of their Tier 1 capital in 2020. History The Bank of Shanghai was fo ...

and

Bank of Jiangsu A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

History

The first urban commercial bank was

Shenzhen City Commercial Bank Shenzhen City Commercial Bank () is a commercial bank based in Shenzhen in the People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependenc ...

in 1995. In 1998, the central bank of China,

People's Bank of China The People's Bank of China (officially PBC or informally PBOC; ) is the central bank of the People's Republic of China, responsible for carrying out monetary policy and regulation of financial institutions in mainland China, as determined by ...

, advocated urban credit cooperative to change their names into urban commercial banks. Most city commercial banks have strong ties to their local government and are majority or wholly state owned. Since 2005 some city commercial banks diversify their shareholders, inviting Chinese and international private companies to take minority shares, merging and cross-shareholding. Some of the banks have listed their shares. Since 2008, an observable trend has emerged for city commercial banks to extend business beyond their home region. They are also often the main shareholder behind village and township banks (VTB). Taizhou City Commercial Bank,

, Bank of Tianjin and

Bank of Ningbo Bank of Ningbo Co., Ltd. is a Chinese city-based commercial bank A commercial bank is a financial institution which accepts deposits from the public and gives loans for the purposes of consumption and investment to make profit. It can a ...

are examples for city commercial banks operating in such ways.

Notable urban commercial banks

References

{{Reflist Banking in China Cooperatives in China Banks of China