OREANDA-NEWS. May 13, 2011. Agricultural Bank of China Limited (ABC) and BMO Financial Group (Bank of Montreal, BMO) held the signing and launching ceremony for their cooperation at the Shangri-La Hotel, Guangzhou, officially launching the cross-border financial services of private banking. Mr. Zhu Hongbo, Vice President of ABC, and Mr. Gilles Ouellette, President of Private Client Group of BMO Financial Group and Chairman of Bank of Montreal (China) Co., Ltd., attended the signing ceremony. Mr. Zhou Hongliang, General Manager of the Private Banking Department of ABC, and Mr. Caizheng Jiebing, Director of Private Banking (China) of BMO, signed the cooperation agreement on behalf of the two sides respectively, reported the press-centre of ABC.

ABC launched private banking services in 2010, providing customers with various services covering personal financial management, asset management, private financial consulting, private value-added service and personal cross-border financial consulting. Located in Shanghai, the private banking headquarter of ABC has established its branches in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong, Hubei, Guangdong, Qingdao, Ningbo, Xiamen and Shenzhen. Founded in 1817, BMO is the first chartered bank of federal government in Canada and also one of the largest banks in North America. Its branches spread across North America, and it is the only Canadian bank that has established a local legal-person bank in China. BMO has more than 130 years of service experience in the field of private banking.

The cooperation of the two banks aims to provide domestic high-end and wealthy persons with cross-border financial services and solutions on studying abroad, immigration and investment to meet their growing cross-border financial service needs.

Through unified service teams and establishing service procedures, the two banks will expand the market according to regulatory requirements. The cooperation between ABC and BMO marks ABC's progress in cross-border services by improving its service functions with the advanced international experience. In the future, the two banks will continue to deepen cooperation and improve cross-border financial service system of private banking to better meet the needs of customers.