Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd is defending itself against allegations by two Filipino-American groups about its business practices and said no further US acquisitions are planned.

About 40 people took part in a protest organized by the National Asian American Coalition and US Pinoys for Good Governance on Tuesday outside a San Francisco branch of BEA USA, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Bank of East Asia Ltd. ICBC's purchase of an 80 percent stake in BEA USA was approved by the Federal Reserve in July.

Faith Bautista of the Asian-American coalition and Loida Nicolas-Lewis of the Pinoy, or Filipino, group said the protest was meant to highlight ICBC's direct and indirect financing of Chinese military action in the South China Sea and the allegedly discriminatory practices by the bank in the United States.

Bi Mingqiang, general manager of ICBC's representative office in New York, said the bank and its senior management understand that the two organizations are concerned about China's relations with other Asian countries. But he said, these concerns are "essentially political matters and government policy, which have no connection with ICBC and BEA USA".

He said he doesn't think the accusations will affect ICBC's development in the US and that the bank "does not have any further plans to make any more acquisitions in the States".

In a joint statement Tuesday, both banks said "the alleged military action in the South China Sea belongs to the realm of international politics and country-to-country relations. We believe the politics and business should be separated and should not be mixed up."

Lawyer Ernest Patrikis of White & Case LLP, the firm that represented ICBC in its purchase of the BEA USA stake, questioned the motives behind Tuesday's protest.

"Why is a group of Filipino-Americans protesting against a Chinese bank? It is very political. Who and what motivates them? That should be the issue for us to look at," he said.

Chi Honghu, a community leader among overseas Chinese living in the San Francisco Bay Area, said the protest seemed so well organized that he suspected behind-the-scenes involvement of interest groups. "Be cautious: They won't stop and they will return," Chi said.

The National Asian American Coalition and US Pinoys for Good Governance both claimed that "ICBC does not hire, make loans or invest with Asian-Americans, Latinos or blacks, which violates the Federal Reserve's Community Reinvestment Act requirements and the anti-discrimination requirements in the Dodd-Frank reform bill".

BEA USA's San Francisco branch, a community lender, isn't connected with ICBC's mainly corporate banking operations, Bi said.

Patrikis explained that ICBC is a "wholesale bank" that doesn't make loans to individuals. "During the credit crisis, ICBC's New York branch provided liquidity to Fortune 500 companies in the US," he added. "So how could it be discriminating when it does not make any consumer loans? The (protesters') accusation itself does not make any sense."

State-owned ICBC is the world's biggest bank by market capitalization (over $3 trillion) and one of the biggest as measured by assets.

Michael Lai, executive vice president of BEA USA, said of the protesters: "I respect their freedom of speech, but their allegations are groundless. I'm afraid there are misunderstandings and miscommunications."

ICBC, having become BEA USA's majority shareholder just six weeks ago, "is still in the process of familiarizing itself with the operations and has made no change to the hiring or credit policies of the bank," Lai said. "We do not discriminate in hiring or in the lending business," he said, adding that BEA USA received an "outstanding" rating from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, its main US regulator, following detailed on-site examinations this year of the bank's operations.

The 13 branches of BEA USA in California and New York are in predominantly Chinese-American neighborhoods, from which most job applicants hail, resulting in staff's current composition, Lai said. He stressed, however, that BEA USA was and is open to all qualified applicants regardless of ethnicity or race.

Bautista, the National Asian American Coalition president, said her organization has a meeting scheduled with Fed officials in mid-September. "We will show that ICBC has one of the worst CRA programs in the nation and is in clear violation of the Dodd-Frank reform bill," she said. According to her, the coalition has helped stop bank mergers in the past.

Ariel Tung in New York contributed to this story.

junechang@chinadailyusa.com