Case
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Surveillance and investigation |
Research into the auto finance market (Industry research) |
Our client, a European car manufacturer,
was considering entering the China market, but needed to establish whether it
was likely to be able to offer financing services to its customers. At the time of the project, there were
extremely strict regulations on foreign involvement in non-banking financial
institutions. It was essentially
impossible for foreign car manufacturers to provide financing to their
customers. However, some Chinese
manufacturers had begun to provide leasing services through partnerships with
banks, and the concessions that China had made to secure WTO entry suggested
that the country would eventually allow foreign companies to provide auto
leasing services. Sinogie conducted extensive interviews with
domestic and foreign car manufacturers to establish whether they offered
leasing or other financial services, and if so, exactly what the nature of these
services was. In cases where companies
did not offer financial services, we established whether they had any plans
to do so in the near future. In
addition, we contacted senior executives at a number of Chinese banks to
establish their policies concerning auto financing. We also conducted in-depth interviews with
officials from the Ministry of Finance, the People’s Bank of China, and other
relevant institutions to establish whether, and, if so, when, foreign and foreign-invested
car manufacturers would be allowed to offer leasing and other financial
services in China. We established from
them how the industry was likely to be regulated when foreign companies were
allowed to offer these services: what criteria the companies would have to
fulfil; how much they would be required to invest; the scope of services that
they would be allowed to offer; and other issues. The client used this information to develop
its business plan for market entry: it knew when it would be able to offer
leasing and other financial services to its customers; how it should
structure its investment in a financial services operation; and what services
it would be able to offer. |
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