CHINA PUT its first domestically built aircraft-carrier into service last December, the culmination of three decades of work. The government hopes for a faster return on efforts to create what it calls an "aircraft-carrier-class securities firm"-ie, an investment bank powerful enough to prevail amid intensifying competition in the country's capital markets. It is poised to draft its biggest financial force into battle, by allowing giant state-owned commercial banks to enter investment banking. China has long had its own version of America's Glass-Steagall separations, which until 1999 barred retail banks from investment banking. China's commercial banks can neither underwrite stocks nor offer brokerage services, which are left to securities firms-a division that officials believe makes the financial system safer. But now they may grant securities licences to two commercial banks in a trial, as first reported by Caixin, a business publication.
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