Les banques étrangères en Asie du Sud-Est: le rôle des local claims

The aim of the article is to clarify the role of foreign banks in some Asian emerging countries and to estimate the consequences on economic and financial development. As a measure, we use local claims, and loans activities, of foreign banks’ subsidiaries and branches on the host emerging countries, since 1994. First, we are interested in the foreign banks’ strategies (local or cross-border activities) and in the major creditors that are, on the recent period, US and UK banks. Then, we highlight that foreign banks, in stress period, develop the local activities of their subsidiaries, particularly in local currency, that are benefic for the local banking market. When local claims are important, foreign claims are less volatile, so economic development is improving, and local banking system is more efficient, particularly in Malaysia. The results are quite the same as in the literature on Latin American and Eastern European emerging countries. Nevertheless, the 2007-08 crisis, that affects roughly foreign banks, may weaken subsidiaries and destabilize the local banking system, so the economic development of emerging countries.