China's champions-elect are going abroad, in oil, in mining and in car manufacturing. But its banks are largely staying put. Why?

Full-year numbers from Industrial & Commercial Bank of China yesterday confirmed that the world's largest lender by market capitalisation, worth more than Citigroup and Santander combined, and with more customers than Russia and Canada have people, has firepower like no other. It remains, however, an almost wholly China play. That's changing only gradually: ICBC is moving in on Thailand's ACL, supplementing stakes in South African, Macanese, Indonesian and Canadian lenders. But still, assets overseas account for less than 2 per cent of interest income.

There are three main reasons why Chinese lenders are not bestriding the globe. The first is that the nation has no need to shop abroad for banking expertise. Insights into selling insurance or credit cards, say, can be imported by selling small stakes to Allianz or American Express, as ICBC did four years ago. Second, China views banking as a utility, to oil the wheels of the productive economy. Overseas branches – ICBC has 162, versus 16,000 back home – are mostly to facilitate trade finance for state-owned enterprises, not build empires of their own. Pay is commensurately low. With total pay of Rmb1.6m ($236,000) in 2008, ICBC chairman Jiang Jianqing would be making tea on some western trading floors.