【正文】 nonperforming loans (NPLs) accumulated before the 1990s, and extremely low capital adequacy rates which failed to offset any risk. Huge changes have taken place in China39。s financial industryallowing foreign banks to invest in the Chinese market and encouraging domestic banks to seek shares of overseas marketsis a trend of globalization, said Peng Xingyun, a researcher with the Financial Research Center under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Nobody would have taken Peng39。s mercial banks that are striving to deliver a better performance on the global financial stage. Differing from the small Bank Halim of Indonesia and Seng Heng Bank of Macao which the Chinese bank purchased several months ago, Standard Bank of South Africa is truly a major international bank. Standard Bank has a presence in 18 African countries and 19 major financial centers in Europe, North America and Asia, and is focusing its expansion in burgeoning markets. It topped all other African banks in terms of assets and profits and ranked 106th in the Top 1,000 World Banks by The Banker magazine last year. Besides this recent news, China Minsheng Bank Corp. also announced on October 8 that it would pay up to billion yuan ($ million) for a stake in UCBH Holding Inc., the Nasdaqlisted parent pany of United Commercial Bank. This was the first overseas acquisition of the Beijingbased midsized lender as well as the first ever acquisition of a . bank by a Chinese bank. On November 8, China Merchants Bank got the green light from the . Federal Reserve for opening a branch in New Yorkthe first nod given by the financial security watchdog to a Chinese bank for branch operations in . territory after it implemented the Foreign Bank Supervision Enhancement Act of 1991(FBSEA). In recent years, more Chinese banks including the Bank of China (BOC), China Construction Bank (CCB) and China Development Bank (CDB) have concluded overseas acquisitions deals. The domestic market will remain the major source of profits for Chinese banks for quite a long period of time, said Guo Tianyong, Director of the Research Center of the Chinese Banking Industry under the Central University of Finance and Economics. But confronted with foreign banks keen on securing larger stakes in the Chinese market, Chinese banks have to get stronger through investing overseas, and it39。s biggest lender by market value, will acquire a 20percent stake in South Africa39。Overseas Expansion China39。s banks are launching overseas expansion projects while multinational banks vie to start operations in China By TAN WEI The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the world39。s Standard Bank for $ billion, said ICBC President Yang Kaisheng, at the 4th