London south Bank University

The Prospects and Challanges for the Developing Countries Bank in UK - The Case of Pakistani Banks

UK banking industry and more specifically retail sector is the most developed and lucrative market in the world. In past decade several changes has occurred in the banking industry like institutional changes, deregularisation and the technological enhancement which attracted the foreign banks to enter in the UK retail banking sector. Foreign banks entry refers to the process by which banks operates beyond their national borders by establishing foreign subsidiaries and branches by taking over banks already operating in the host market.
The research conducted by dataminotor manifest the attractiveness of the UK Retail Banking for foreign banks by revealing the growth statistics of the retail lending and saving (Table 1 & 2, Graph 1 & 2). The popularity of UK financial markets within the International banks are also obvious from the research of Davis (2002) and Strachan (2002) mentioning that foreign banks holds 55% of the total assets of the UK banking sector, with about 70 incorporated subsidiaries of foreign banks or financial institutions, 372 European Economic Area (EEA) banks and 115 branches of non-EEA banks.
The entrance of big banks typically owned by developed countries to developing or other developed countries financial markets usually intended to accommodate the financial needs of their home transnational companies in other countries� financial markets. Due to this fact London had a huge of mergers and acquisitions of its local�s banks from multinational banks in 1980, when most of the transnational firms were approaching to London for listing in London Stock Exchange because of great economical and political stability. Though UK is still the hub for transnational companies for raising capital and doing business but the new junior stock market �AIM� introduced by London Stock Exchange have successfully attain the interest of medium and large size companies from developing countries. While these companies looking forward to establish their business in UK, the banks from the respective developing countries also looking ahead to enter in UK financial market in the hope to capture the expected business with their home country companies and as well to gain the market share of the profitable UK financial market. Apparently, the auxiliary motives for developing countries banks to expand in UK are to enhance their portfolio of investment and as well diversity their risk.