China's city commercial bank’s accumulated assets by the end of 2006 was RMB2.59 trillion, up by 27.4% over the same period of previous year and accounting for 5.9% of total assets of financial organizations and its total liabilities reached RMB2.47 trillion, up by 26.5% compared to the same period of last year. China's city commercial bank is the fastest-growing segment in China's banking industry.

An upsurge of banks going public will spread across city commercial banks in 2007 after state-owned banks and joint-stock commercial banks have been successfully listed. Presently, 9 out of 144 city commercial banks expressed their attempts to be listed and such 9 banks, all of which managed to introduce strategic investors, includes Bank of Shanghai, Bank of Beijing, Bank of Ningbo, Chongqing Commercial Bank, Bank of Nanjing, Hangzhou City Commercial Bank and Bank of Tianjin, etc.

Bank of Nanjing and Bank of Ningbo have submitted the application of going public to China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) and are now waiting for approval. Bank of Nanjing plans to issue 700 million A shares and Bank of Ningbo plans to issue 450 million A shares. Bank of Beijing intends to issue A + H simultaneously in 2007 and expects to raise fund of one billion U.S. dollars.

It is a trend for some city commercial banks that have good asset quality and good performance to establish long-term capital supplement mechanism by going public. City commercial banks have seen a clear development route, i.e. introducing strategic investors – cross-region operation – supplementing capital fund by going public – expanding across China.