Abstract: Under the new circumstances, the internal opening-up of the financial sector holds significant practical importance for solving the financing difficulties of enterprises. While some studies have examined the impact of foreign bank entry on corporate credit acquisition, few have focused on the influence of private bank entry. Therefore, this study employs the pilot cities of private bank entry as a quasi-natural experiment to investigate the impact of the internal opening-up of finance on corporate credit acquisition. The results show that the entry of private banks increases the scale of corporate credit acquisition, with this effect being more pronounced among young firms, small firms, private enterprises, capital-intensive firms, non-tech firms, and enterprises in the central and western regions. Mechanism tests indicate that the entry of private banks influences corporate credit acquisition by enhancing bank competition, reducing financing costs and default probabilities, improving corporate governance, and increasing corporate information transparency. Various robustness tests further confirm the validity of the conclusions.

Key words: banking liberalization process, private banks, bank entry regulation, corporate credit acquisition