On December 30, 2009, Bank of Nova Scotia announced that it acquired a stake in Xi'an City Commercial Bank. Scotiabank plans to increase its stake to 20%, the limit for foreign-bank investments in China. It has entered into agreements to lift its stake to 18.1%. When the stake raising is completed, the total investment will be about C$162 million.
Scotiabank is Canada's third-largest bank and the most globally diversified of the five big Canadian banks.
Xi'an City Commercial Bank is based in Xi'an, a city in western China of more than 8 million people. The bank ranks third in the city's loan market share, serves more than 1.2 million customers and has total assets of about C$9.3 billion.
Further information is found on The Wall Street Journal.