China Merchants Bank

Commercial bank · Shenzhen, China

China Merchants Bank is a Shenzhen-based joint-stock commercial bank founded in 1987, the first Chinese bank wholly owned by corporate entities rather than the state, and a domestic systemically important bank. It reported total assets of 13.07 trillion yuan and a CET1 ratio of 14.16 percent at the end of 2025. Overseas it has branches in Hong Kong, New York, Singapore, Luxembourg, London and Sydney plus the CMB Wing Lung Bank subsidiary in Hong Kong. It was the first Chinese bank to open a US branch in 2008 and the first joint-stock Chinese bank approved in the UK in 2016. Mainland crypto business is illegal.

Legal name: China Merchants Bank Co., Ltd.
Regulated by: National Financial Regulatory Administration (NFRA), People's Bank of China, HKMA (Hong Kong branch and CMB Wing Lung Bank), Federal Reserve (New York branch), PRA/FCA (London branch), CSSF (Luxembourg), MAS (Singapore), APRA (Sydney)
Licence confirmed: yes, on a regulator's own list
Established: 1987
Website: www.cmbchina.com

Scores, 0 to 10

8.0Financial strength & stability

D-SIB with CET1 14.16 percent and Moody's A3 rating. · source

6.5Trade, manufacturing & import-export

Trade financing and international settlement through six overseas branches and offshore centres. · source

6.0Cross-border payments, FX and multi-currency accounts

Cross-border finance through offshore centres, CMB Wing Lung and six overseas branches; margins not published. Cross-border cash pooling for Chinese corporates through offshore centres and six overseas branches. · source

5.0Asia-Pacific (SG, HK, AU, JP, KR)

Hong Kong branch and CMB Wing Lung Bank subsidiary plus Singapore and Sydney branches. · source

5.0Lowest fees

No English-language corporate fee schedule is published. · source

4.0Best interest on business balances

Corporate deposits pay regulated demand-deposit rates; no treasury sweep product listed. · source

4.0Online businesses: e-commerce and SaaS

Merchant and settlement services for Chinese exporters; no foreign-merchant collection accounts. A foreign software company must set up a Chinese entity with separate RMB basic, foreign currency capital and settlement accounts under SAFE rules, and the bank's English corporate pages list no API, Stripe or accounting integrations. · source

4.0Customer satisfaction

No Trustpilot profile with reviews; fined 6.5 million yuan by the NFRA in July 2026. · source

4.0Business cards (Visa, Mastercard)

CMB's English site returned no corporate product content today and publishes no Visa or Mastercard business card programme, virtual cards or spend controls for mainland companies. · source

4.0Bitcoin

CMB International Securities has offered 24/7 bitcoin trading since 18 August 2025 to eligible professional investors, and CMB Wing Lung Bank has offered Hong Kong bitcoin ETFs since October 2024; neither is offered to business accounts. · source

4.0Ethereum

Ether trading has been available in the CMB International app since August 2025 for individual professional investors only, with no ETH custody or staking for companies. · source

3.5Europe (EU, EEA, Switzerland)

Luxembourg branch serves corporates only. · source

3.5United Kingdom

London branch, open since 2016, is corporate-only. · source

3.5United States

New York branch files a US resolution plan and serves corporate clients only. · source

3.5Startups & VC-backed companies

Startups face the same in-person onboarding of four to eight weeks. · source

3.5Foreign-owned & non-resident companies

A foreign-invested enterprise needs a Chinese business licence and the legal representative must be physically present in China for account opening; remote or proxy applications are not accepted and the process takes four to eight weeks. · source

3.5Stablecoins (USDC, USDT and others)

USDT trading opened in the CMB International app in August 2025 for eligible individual professional investors, while mainland rules since February 2026 ban unapproved offshore yuan stablecoins; there are no stablecoin accounts or payouts for business clients. · source

3.0Crypto wallet and custody for a business

Hong Kong subsidiary CMB International Securities has held virtual assets for clients since August 2025 through an omnibus account at an SFC-licensed platform, but its guide opens these accounts only to individual professional investors, not companies. · source

2.5Fast digital onboarding

Four to eight weeks with an in-person visit by the legal representative. · source

2.5Fintech companies that need a partner bank

Payment and crypto firms are restricted by the 2021 PBOC notice; no safeguarding programme published. · source

2.0On-ramp: buy crypto with fiat

On the mainland the 2026 PBOC notice forbids fiat to crypto exchange; only individual professional investors in Hong Kong can buy crypto with fiat through CMB International's app, and companies cannot. · source

2.0Off-ramp: crypto to fiat in a business account

Mainland CMB may not settle funds for virtual-currency business under the February 2026 PBOC notice; selling crypto back to fiat exists only inside CMB International's Hong Kong app for individual professional investors. · source

1.0Crypto-friendly bank

Mainland China outlaws cryptocurrency business, and the PBOC notice of 6 February 2026 stretched that to yuan-pegged stablecoins and tokenised real-world assets. · source

1.0High-risk verticals (iGaming, cannabis, adult, forex)

Article 303 of China's Criminal Law and the 2005 judicial interpretation make running a gambling house, a gambling website or an online betting agency a crime, and banks may not move funds to gambling sites, so licensed iGaming, casino and similar operators cannot be banked onshore. · source

1.0Accept crypto payments

PBOC notice Yinfa [2026] No. 42 of 6 February 2026 bars mainland financial institutions from providing accounts, transfers or settlement for virtual-currency business, and CMB offers no crypto acceptance anywhere in the group. · source

Sources

Built on public information and the BankStore team's own aggregated experience; no confidential client or partner data. Bank Index and BankStore are not banks. This is information, not financial advice.