Reuters - Tuesday, February 26
China's banking regulator gave banks approval a year ago to establish leasing companies, seven years after it stopped issuing licences in order to clean up the industry. (Reporting by Eadie Chen; Editing by Alan Wheatley and Edmund Klamann) - BEIJING, Feb 25 - BOC Aviation, the aircraft leasing arm of the Bank of China , said on Monday that it will lease eight Airbus A320 aircraft to Qantas Airways Ltd , Australia's biggest airline.
The agreement is the second deal between Qantas and BOC, which leased three A320s to Qantas in 2004, the Chinese bank said on its Web site, www.boc.cn.
BOC Aviation will deliver the planes between the third quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011 to Jetstar, Qantas's low-cost Singapore-based subsidiary.
Singapore-based BOC Aviation, which Bank of China acquired in 2006, said it now had 70 planes leased to airlines worldwide.
It has another 64 aircraft on order for delivery by 2013.
Chinese banks are also actively expanding in domestic leasing to diversify their income streams.
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China set up a leasing company in September, while Caijing magazine reported last week that China Development Bank was awaiting approval to inject 8 billion yuan into a Shenzhen leasing firm.
China's banking regulator gave banks approval a year ago to establish leasing companies, seven years after it stopped issuing licences in order to clean up the industry.