Foreign banks are hoping that the current limits on their ownership of domestic banks will be relaxed, a top International Monetary Conference (IMC) official said. Outgoing IMC president John McFarlane told reporters at the end of a central bankers' meeting in Beijing that there were "some signs" that the threshold on foreign stakes in domestic banks might be eased. The Chinese regulators who had addressed the IMC had not suggested alternative thresholds or timeframes for such a change, McFarlane noted. "But I think everybody believes that this is a starting point," he said. "And if you look at other countries that have been opened up, they've started in a relatively modest way because it's very important, I think, that the first investments are successful." After consolidating on that success, those countries tend "more strategically to move forward" on the ownership issue, McFarlane said.