The “Regulations of the People’s Republic of China for the Administration of Foreign Banks”, which went into effect at the end of 2006, marked the full opening up of China's banking sector. On April 23rd of this year, a first batch of foreign banks began to provide RMB business to local residents. Among them were Citibank, Standard Chartered Bank and HSBC; each had established branches in Shanghai as early as the end of the 19th century, thus having a high level of visibility among the locals.

When Citibank entered Shanghai in 1812, the company decided to use the American flag as its logo. To the Chinese, the flag’s stars and stripes design appeared to be very elaborate (花俏),so they termed the bank 花旗, meaning “ornate flag”. As the name became commonly used and recognized, the company cleverly adopted it as the bank’s official name. The success of its name is that it not only reflects the local people's ideas but also shows the origin country of the brand - the United States which provide excellent financial service. The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) opened its first Hong Kong and Shanghai branches in March 1865. Its name “汇丰(Huifeng)”, is neither a phonetic translation nor a direct semantic translation of its original name. 汇means to exchange, remit or accumulate; 丰means abundant and plentiful. This name is perceived by the Chinese as being very auspicious because it implies profitable business exchanges.
standard-chartered

The Standard Chartered Bank launched its Shanghai branch in 1858. The first manager of the bank was Mr. John Mackellar, so the name was a combination of the semantic translation of “standard” (标准- biāo zhǔn), with the phonetic translation of Mr. Mackeller’s name (麦加利- mai jia li) to become”标准麦加利银行” (biāo zhǔn mài jiā lì yín hang). When the bank merged with the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China to become Standard Chartered PLC in 1969, Hong Kong’s Cantonese pronunciation of “Charter” as 渣打 (zhā dǎ) was adopted as the bank name. Although the bank has kept the name to this day, it is widely perceived as a unfortunate name. 渣 means residue and scum, while 打 can be translated as beat and fight. Together, they also sound similar to the Chinese word for bomb (炸弹- zhà dàn).

In our research, we found that most foreign banks use very literal semantic translation for their Chinese naming. BNP Paribas is 法国巴黎银行 (fǎ guó bā lí yín hang), the Bank of East Asia is 东亚银行 (dōng yà yín hang), and the Development Bank of Singapore is 新加坡发展银行 (xīn jiā pō fā zhǎn yín hang). It is worth noting the Chinese name of Societe Generale as 法国兴业银行(fǎ guó xīng yè yín hang), is an example of metaphorical semantic naming. 兴 (xīng) and 业(yè) mean “prosperity” and “enterprise” respectively, while bearing no association to “societe” and “generale”. The successful naming of Societe Generale is similar to the HSBC case, where the name’s emotional impact on the consumer is considered.

Through analysis, Labbrand naming experts suggests that foreign banks consider three important tips when choosing Chinese names:

1. The name should accurate and specific to avoid sharing names with other companies and to maintain a consistent name use across all of China’s markets (including Taipei and Hong Kong).

2. Having a Chinese name which closely resembles the original name in pronunciation and meaning will help the consumer associate it with the company and remember it better.
3. In the Chinese financial industry, names with auspicious characters will be perceived well by consumers.

Under the trend of economic globalization, foreign banks should enter the Chinese markets with strong Chinese names to be quickly accepted by the local consumers.