TMCnet News
Top stories of the day: China banking industry - February 6BEIJING, Feb 05, 2013 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- 1. China Merchants Bank (CMB, 600036.SH) and China Mobile (CHL.NYSE ; 00941.HK) signed a cooperation framework agreement on Tuesday to tak e a share in the mobile payment market. According to the agreement, CMB and China Mobile will launch strate gic cooperation in mobile payment, marketing channels, and company cus tomer communication. Users will be able to enjoy some of CMB's service s through China Mobile's near field communication (NFC) cell-phone wal let client. CMB established partnerships with China Unicom (CHU.NYSE; 00762.HK; 600050.SH) and China Telecom (CHA.NYSE; 00728.HK) respectively in Nov ember and December last year. 2. The debt default risk of some sub-provincial governments in Chin a and their financing platforms will rise significantly during the nex t two years unless steps are taken to strengthen their financing, says a press release by Standard & Poor's Rating Service on Tuesday. S&P indicates that many local and regional governments (LRGs) may h ave weakening liquidity positions, which combined with a perception of more modest future extraordinary government support, could rein in lo cal government financing vehicles' (LGFVs) new borrowing. However, S&P believes the Chinese government is likely to make nota ble progress over the next two to five years in enabling greater parti cipation of private-sector lenders and state-owned enterprises in infr astructure and utilities investment. (Edited by Lu Yuan, [email protected]) |