Making Financial Headlines · Page 8
Mastercard and Citigroup Reach the Door-Mat Stage of Diplomacy
· New York time
The United States raised market access issues for Mastercard and Citigroup in bilateral meetings with China in Bangkok, according to a US Treasury official. The talks put the ability of American financial businesses to operate in China on the diplomatic agenda. Market access sounds abstract until a company tries to turn international ambition into an actual business. Permission, operating conditions and competitive opportunity are not the same thing as identifying a large potential customer base on a presentation slide. The official's account establishes that the issues were raised, not that they were resolved. A meeting can be commercially significant without functioning as a completed transaction. Diplomatic language has many verbs, and discussed does not secretly mean delivered. The stakes concern how major American financial firms participate in one of the world's largest economies. The questions also sit within the wider relationship between the two countries, where commercial interests and government decisions regularly share the same doorway. A corporate expansion plan can spend considerable time at a reception desk while everyone debates the visitor badge. The serious issue is the distance between wanting to serve a market and being able to do so under workable conditions. A handshake cannot process a payment.
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