ANZ is progressing plans to develop a mainland Chinese clientele with links to Australia and New Zealand, as the bank exploits the licence allocated it last month to operate a yuan-dominated retail business in the country.Charles Li, chief executive of ANZ in China said: "We will focus on the affluent segment… with a further focus on the clients who have a natural linkage with Australia [or] with New Zealand." Shanghai-based Li spoke with Banking Day in a telephone interview last week. Li joined ANZ following the takeover of the RBS two years ago.ANZ believes it can offer individual Chinese customers a differentiated service spanning deposits, mortgages and wealth management. It will also offer investment solutions in natural resources such as gold, agricultural products and commodities."We're probably, if not the only one, [one of] the very few which can offer New Zealand-dollar banking account services in China," said Li.ANZ China, one of the market-makers on the Shanghai gold exchange, has been the best market-maker for several years on the run, said Li. The bank, which was locally incorporated in October 2010, is confident of taking advantage of its first-mover victory in developing its retail banking operation - it's the first Australian bank to secure such as a retail licence."We have every aspiration to have the largest market share among Australian banks (in China)," said Li, who was promoted to his present role in February 2011."The basis is still very low.  I wouldn't be surprised to see, nominally, a very high rate of growth within a few years of hard work."Li declined to disclose ANZ's financial performance in China in 2011, but confirmed that the bank had seen an 80 per cent year-on-year growth in operating profit during the year.  According to a KPMG survey, ANZ China reported 2 million yuan in operating profit before provisions in 2010.The KPMG survey ranked ANZ China as the 122nd largest bank in China, with 22.7 billion yuan in assets by the end of 2010.Li said ANZ's aim was to capture a 30 per cent share of the banking business from the flow of people and businesses travelling between China and Australia and New Zealand.ANZ will begin to offer retail services denominated in yuan in the next couple of months.He said that, on average, 30,000 mainland Chinese students and skilled workers are bound for Australia each year.This gives the bank a potential retail customer base to serve their families, which remain in China, Li said. In spite of the global economic slowdown, bilateral trade between China and Australia has been maintained at US$110 billion, with an expected 10 to 15 per cent growth a year. This also paints a rosy outlook for the bank's existing corporate banking business in China, according to Li.Although retail business often generates a thinner margin than that from corporate banking for banks in China, Jin Lin, a banking analyst with Orient Securities Co in Shanghai, said the high net-worth segment is suitable niche for ANZ China to pursue. "In China, we