China banking on a more worldly financial sector

Commercial banks also fall behind policy banks in terms of overseas expansion, Tian said.

During the past 20 years, policy banks have become the main source of financing for businesses and have formed a relatively mature service model by running a large number of international cooperation projects, he noted.

China Development Bank, the nation's largest foreign investment bank since 2009, has loan programs in more than 100 regions.

The Export-Import Bank of China supports projects and overseas investment businesses worth nearly $280 billion in 2012, a rise of 25 percent over the previous year.

Commercial banks are bound by more restrictions than policy banks because they are listed companies, and China's banking oversight is getting tougher, according to Tian.

In the past few years, the overseas financial market has experienced major fluctuations, whereas the domestic market has delivered healthy profits. This also has hindered commercial banks from developing their cross-border operations to a certain extent.

Non-banking financial institutions are even further behind commercial banks in terms of overseas expansion, Tian's article noted.

For a long time, China's financial system relied mainly on indirect financing from banks, so the marketization of non-banking financial institutions remains relatively low, Tian said. Lacking talent and international experience, these financial institutions not only are small in scale but also need to improve their customer service offerings.

Currently, only a small number of such institutions have set up operations abroad despite the demand by Chinese enterprises for a variety of financial services, such as insurance, consulting and investment banking.

In addition to benefiting from the global expansion of Chinese enterprises, both domestic and foreign financial sectors are set to embrace other opportunities, the bank chairman concluded.