Comparison Of The Universal Banking In The USA & Germany And The Choice Of China

Under the condition of economic and financial globalization, the global extending of financial system has become the mainstream all over the world. The developments of economics, finance, science and technology promote the development of universal banking system. Many western countries represented by the USA and Germany are striving to develop universal banking of various forms in different ways in order to enhance the competition power of their banks in the international financial market. Especially from the end of the 1990s, along with the rising of the fifth tide of global merger and acquisition, many super international universal banks such as the Citycorp, HSBC, Deutsche Bank and so on whose branch networks extend all over the world appear. But in China, although the banks are speeding up their development and reform, and some financial holding companies have emerged in China, we still have a long way to go compared with the western countries. The globalization trend of universal banking will inevitably have a great influence on China that is a regular member of the WTO and is opening step by step, which make China has no other choice but develop universal banking. But China still has to decide which way to go.Universal banks can be divided into two types on the whole: one is the universal banking of financial holding company represented by the universal banks in the USA, the other is the universal banking of unified interior management represented by the universal banks in Germany. The cause and route of development of these two types of universal banks are different, and their organization structure and supervision mode differ from each other greatly. This article studies these two types of universal banks, and draw the conclusion that each type has its own advantages and disadvantages and they are becoming more and more identical these years. We can learn a lot from it and find the right way for our country to develop universal banking. I think China shouldbegin with the financial holding company and in the future both types may exist in China. In the respect of organization structure, China may adopt the advantages of both H-type and M-type organization structure and diversify its own. In addition to this, the supervision of banking in China should also speed up its reform along with the development of universal banking, draw close to the international rules and conventions and achieve the centralized functional supervision at last.