China's banks can further explore the retail banking sector and offer better services to individual customers as part of efforts to transform their profit model and strengthen competitive advantages, said Jay Freeman, senior advisor of consulting firm Gallup and a veteran of the retail banking sector.

Freeman, who had led Sales & Service Development in Wells Fargo's Community Bank, said during a roundtable discussion with Chinese bankers that he believes cross sale—selling additional products or services to established customers—could be a core driver in increasing banks' profits.

According to Freeman, an expert in cross selling, an average US client owns about 20 financial products. Although the data for China is not available, the number is estimated to be much lower.

He added that China's banks are at a cross road and face increasingly fierce competition, so they need to offer a variety of services and better service quality to build customer loyalty.

China is a country with a high savings rate, but more people are seeking investment channels, such as insurance, wealth management products and stock market, to protect their money from inflation.

Chinese banks are enjoying easy but huge profits by drawing in deposits at low interest rates and lending out at high rates.

Premier Wen Jiabao said last week that China's top leadership has reached a consensus to reduce the State sector's banking monopoly. The deepening reform in China's financial market may pose challenges to banks' current profit models.

When commenting on the issue of Chinese banks' profit model, Freeman said when others are running fast; you must also be a fast runner.