Yet since then, Chinese banks have been financing the building of tens of millions more of them.
Asset management is another potential source of income growth, but Chinese banks have work to do in that area.
Aware of credit-quality concerns, the Chinese banks have been steadily putting aside reserves.
Some Chinese banks have switched to focus more on underwriting bonds, a business that has been booming since last year.
Ratios tied to non-performing loans held by Chinese banks have been improving.
Over the past two years, though, Chinese banks have engaged in a government-inspired stimulus lending binge that expanded their lending books by 58%.
Already, some believe that hot money exiting the country helps explain why this year Chinese banks have increased lending at a much slower pace than most observers expected.
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Chinese banks have been growing rapidly over the past half-decade.
Milan Brahmbhatt, the World Bank's regional economist, said that while profits at Chinese banks have been growing very quickly, the credit market problems "will not have a huge impact on either profitability or on balance sheets".
This year, Chinese investment banks have an 18.2% share of bond deals from mainland or Hong Kong issuers denominated in Hong Kong dollars or U.S. dollars, compared with just 11.2% in all of 2012, according to Dealogic.
Morgan became the latest foreign bank to invest in a Chinese trust company, even as Western banks have sold stakes in Chinese state-owned banks.
We have seen it in investment banks where Chinese walls have been ignored and information freely passed about.
It will be more difficult for Chinese investment banks, which have a relatively short history, to compete in the asset-management business outside China, he said.
Unlike, say, Chinese and Korean banks, Mexican banks have been slow to set up in California to help them (though this is now starting).
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Major Chinese banks also are increasingly competing for the same pool of wealthy savers that foreign banks have targeted.
He pointed out that some major banks have scaled back their expectations for Chinese economic growth lately, although the forecasts were still around 7.6% to 7.7% for 2013.
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That is in part because foreign banks have been allowed to serve individual Chinese savers only since 2007, an opening that launched a wave of investment by the banks in branches and personnel.
So far this year, share sales have accounted for just 26% of Chinese banks' total capital-markets revenue, Dealogic says, while the figure is 55% at Goldman.
Companies and entrepreneurs have turned to this underground sector, with Chinese banks tightening lending as part of the government's fight against inflation.
On average, the big-four Chinese banks are down 29% this year in Hong Kong trading, yet analysts have remained steadfastly bullish.
Questions have been raised within China about whether to separate CIC's stakes in big Chinese banks out of the fund so that it can focus on international investments only.
Other managers, including Robert Horrocks, chief investment officer at Matthews International Capital Management, are increasingly hunting for Chinese small caps, which have been harder hit than larger firms over the past two years as banks tightened their lending standards, but are expected to gain as financing opportunities improve, he says.
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Other mainland banks have opened offices too, and from their sleek towers they make collateral-free loans to Chinese companies.
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