The Globe and Mail reports in its Monday edition that Bank of Montreal is venturing deeper into China by expanding its relationship with the country's largest state-owned bank. The Globe's James Bradshaw writes that a new memorandum of understanding with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), signed in November and announced publicly on Monday, sets terms to co-operate on everything from asset management and trade finance to sharing techniques for curbing fraud. Crucially, the agreement opens a pathway for BMO to distribute an array of investment products, including mutual funds and exchange traded funds, across China through ICBC's vast banking network. By most measures, ICBC is the world's largest bank with about $5-trillion in assets. BMO signed its first memorandum of understanding with ICBC in 1997, and has had ties to the Chinese lender for three decades. The new agreement comes just as China has promised to liberalize access to its financial services sector for foreign companies. BMO is wellpositioned to capitalize on a push to greater openness as the only Canadian bank with a wholly owned subsidiary in China, called Bank of Montreal (China) Co., more commonly known as BMO ChinaCo.