Determinants of Location Choice of Foreign Banks Within China: Evidence from Cities

Abstract

This chapter investigates location choice of foreign banks within China based on a panel data of 40 cities. Our empirical results show that the market opportunity is the most crucial factor to affect foreign bank decision to enter China cities. The labor cost is also important and the high labor cost of a city attracts more foreign banks. But the restriction on the locations of Renminbi business operation is very limited. Furthermore, we find that the city infrastructures like hardware and software environments strongly enhance the relation between market opportunity and foreign bank penetration.