Commerzbank dials in sights on corporate world

Commerzbank, the second largest bank by market capitalization in Germany, is vowing it will deliver 20 percent growth in its corporate banking business in China this year, which doubles the target it set for all of Asia, according to a media briefing held in Beijing Monday.
After being hit hard by the global financial crisis and two-years after acquiring German Dresdner Bank in 2008, the bank reported last Wednesday an overall operating profit of 1.4 billion euros ($1.94 billion) in 2010, from a loss of 4.5 billion euros ($6.22 billion) in 2009.
To date, the bank has about 1,200 branches at home and another 25 abroad with three of those branches located in the Chinese mainland.
The bank opened its Shanghai branch in 1994, establishing the location for its Asian headquarters. Later, Commerzbank set up two other branches in Beijing and Tianjin in 1997 and 2009 respectively, and obtained the licensing to conduct RMB business in Shanghai and Beijing in 2000 and 2010.
Unlike its larger competitor Deutsche Bank, which targets primarily investment banking, Commerzbank focuses on corporate banking as its growth driver, Michael Kotzbauer, a regional board member for Asia with Commerzbank, told the Global Times yesterday.
Commerzbank provides financial support to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), cross-border transactions, mergers and acquisitions. Their target customers are German companies investing abroad and foreign companies investing in Germany. Last year, the bank recorded loan volume of 900 million euros ($1.24 billion) and 800 clients within China, Kotzbauer said.
The Chinese market share held by foreign banks was only 2 percent in 2009 and that figure is expected to remain unchanged in 2010, according to accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers' report last year.
However, in view of China's fast economic growth and increasing foreign investment between Germany and China, Kotzbauer believes that the 20 percent business growth target is realistic.