SMBC Consumer Finance to open 4 Chinese offices

Its consumer loan unit intends to open the branches in the next three years.

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc. wants to focus its capital on China, where it already has a presence. It already has offices in Shenyang and Shenzhen and is to open a third in Tianjin.

SMBC Consumer Finance’s subsidiaries in Shenyang and Shenzhen have 13 branches in both cities. It expects the number of Chinese outlets to increase to 70 after it opens the additional offices.

SMBC Consumer Finance, which was created after Sumitomo Mitsui made Promise Compabt a wholly owned subsidiary in 2012, is expanding in faster-growing foreign markets as deflation crimps borrowing in Japan.

Lending outstanding in China, Hong Kong and Thailand came to US$235 million as of Dec. 31, some 3% of SMBC Consumer Finance’s total loan amount of US$8 billion.

Sumitomo Mitsui Chief Executive Officer Koichi Miyata recently said that consumer finance is one of the strengths of the Tokyo-based bank, Japan’s second largest by market value.