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The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) should expect to draw more multinational banks as it develops as a dynamic international investment hub with a stable business environment and strong policy support, analysts said.

The comments came after the Standard Chartered Bank announced on Monday that it will establish a GBA center in the Guangzhou International Commercial Center in Tianhe, South China's Guangdong Province, with a $40 million investment as a part of the company's important strategic project in the region, according to a press release the company sent to the Global Times on Monday.

The center, which is scheduled to begin operations in the third quarter of 2020 and expected to employ more than 1,600 people by the end of 2023, will support personal and corporate banking operations in the GBA, facilitate the development and application of innovative financial technologies, and strengthen Standard Chartered's cross-border banking operations in the region, according to the press release.

The GBA is a dynamic and internationally competitive first-class bay area and world-class city cluster, and its demand for banking services is on the rise, Bill Winters, Standard Chartered Group chief executive, said in the statement.

The new center allows us to pool our strengths and expertise in the Belt and Road, the internationalization of the Chinese yuan, wealth management and other areas to provide one-stop cross-border banking services for individual and corporate customers in the area, Winters said.

Four major commercial banking and regulatory authorities including China's central bank and the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission issued a joint document on May 15 aiming to boost commercial advancement in the GBA. The document highlighted the importance of achieving high-quality economic development and the financial needs of trade and investment facilitation, expanding the opening-up of the financial industry and cooperation between the mainland, Hong Kong and Macao, and promoting financial market and infrastructure interconnectivity in the area.

And Standard Chartered is not the only bank that holds great expectations for the GBA.

Wang Haihong, vice president of HSBC China, said recently that as the largest international bank in the GBA and the first international bank to conduct cross-border Chinese yuan trade settlement across six continents, HSBC will continue to fully support the construction of the Belt and Road and the GBA, according to the China Banking Association on July 13.

"The future development of the GBA is promising because it is an important region for high-quality economic development in China and its development is in line with the government's spirit for boosting the economic development in the region," Ding Li, director of the Regional and Enterprise Competitiveness Research Center at the Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

Ding said that as more companies move in, the demand for banking services will be particularly strong - especially in cross-border finance - which will drive more banks to settle their businesses in the GBA and enjoy the area's policy dividends.