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(Reuters) – A Wells Fargo banker, Chenyue Mao, who had been barred from leaving China for several months, has been allowed to return to the United States following negotiations between U.S. and Chinese officials, according to two people with knowledge of the case.
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Mao, who works in Wells Fargo’s international factoring business, was prevented from leaving China due to her involvement in a criminal case, China’s Foreign Ministry said in July. The ministry said Mao had been required to cooperate with an investigation.
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Mao, born in Shanghai and based in Atlanta, is a U.S. citizen. She currently serves as a managing director at the U.S. commercial bank, according to her LinkedIn profile.
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Below are the publicly available details about Wells Fargo’s business interest in China and Asia Pacific:
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CHINA BANKING UNITS
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* Wells Fargo’s China presence is much smaller than its Wall Street peers. The bank first set up a representative office in Beijing in 1997, which was de-registered in 2018, business registration records show.
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* In 2005, the bank established a branch in Shanghai and, in 2015, another one in Beijing. The two branches employed 51 and 12 staff, respectively, as of 2024, the records show.
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* These two branches draw deposits from Chinese customers, and provide loans, trade bonds and securities other than stocks, and conduct foreign exchange businesses, according to the units’ business registration.
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* Unlike other large U.S. banks, Wells Fargo has not moved to establish a locally incorporated foreign-funded bank – a status that allows foreign lenders to offer a wider range of banking businesses.
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FACTORING BUSINESS
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* Mao, a trade financing executive at Wells Fargo, has been with the bank for 12 years, according to her LinkedIn profile. She was elected chairwoman at FCI two weeks ago, a global organisation for factoring and financing for domestic and international trade.
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* Mao spearheads Wells Fargo’s international factoring business, a financing method where companies sell their receivables to third parties, such as banks, in exchange for immediate cash, and advises multinational clients on cross-border working-capital strategies, according to an FCI release.
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* She has spent more than 21 years in factoring, including over a decade guiding Wells Fargo’s global franchise. Mao has grown annual import-factoring flows to 2.6 billion euros ($3.02 billion), the release states.
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* Apart from banking, Wells Fargo’s commercial distribution finance arm established a factoring company in Beijing’s neighbouring city Tianjin in 2012, according to business records. The unit has a branch office in Shanghai that houses 34 staff.
* Factoring businesses, a niche sector that thrives on the rising demand from small- and medium-sized enterprises for financing, are supervised by China’s banking regulator, according to a report from official industry body Commercial Factoring Expertise Committee in China.
WELLS FARGO IN ASIA PACIFIC
* The bank has two main Asia Pacific hubs in Hong Kong and Singapore, according to its website. It has other regional offices including in Seoul, Taipei, and Tokyo, in addition to in-country relationship management teams outside of these cities.
* Its Hong Kong branch, which supports the bank’s customers in Asia, recorded HK$42 million ($5.35 million) in profit after tax in 2024, down 22% from the previous year, financial disclosures in April showed.
($1 = 0.8602 euros)
($1 = 7.8488 Hong Kong dollars)
(Reporting by Hong Kong Newsroom; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee, Rachna Uppal and Shri Navaratnam)
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