China's central bank governor Yi Gang announced in April that China would implement six steps to open up the financial sector by the end of 2018. Since then, a number of measures have been taken to progress towards this goal including increased caps on the foreign ownership of securities brokerages, investment funds, futures firms and life companies. A move towards the final removal of caps can be expected within three years. Foreign funded banks can also be allowed to underwrite and sell government bonds in China. Other plans include increasing accessibility to China's equity markets such as through the London-Shanghai Stock Connect. Foreign players like Nomura, JP Morgan and UBS have begun to raise their shareholdings in China. JP Morgan has applied to set up a majority ownership securities firm while UBS has raised its shareholding proportion in UBS Securities from 24.99% to 51% and Nomura has announced a plan to set up a holding firm.
July 16, 2018