OREANDA-NEWS. March 29, 2011. The first overseas RMB business center of ICBC officially starts operation at the Bank's Singapore Branch, marking the beginning of the Bank's large-scale expansion in the overseas RMB business market. As the first RMB business center in Singapore, the center will effectively improve local environment for RMB use, and promote popularity of RMB in bilateral trade and investment between China and Singapore. At the same time, the center will also extend its services to the whole Southeast Asian region, thanks to the strong driving force of Singapore in the region. Nearly 100 people, including Dai Bing, Charge d'affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Singapore, Wang Lili, Senior Executive Vice President of ICBC and other socialites, took part in the opening ceremony in Singapore, reported the press-centre of ICBC.

At the ceremony, Senior Executive Vice President Wang Lili says that establishing the RMB business center at the Singapore Branch represents another important breakthrough for ICBC to steadily implement its strategy of internationalization. Besides, this is also a major move to aggressively push forward the bank's cross-border RMB business and enhance its capability to provide financial services globally. In the next step, ICBC will continue to extend its domestic advantages in RMB capital, products, system and professional staff overseas to improve its financial services worldwide and the global offshore RMB clearing network. The objective is to build a platform for running RMB business through different channels with a wide range of products and high efficiency. ICBC strives to be the preferred partner bank of cross-border RMB services for customers around the world.

It is said that ICBC's RMB business center in Singapore will centralize the RMB business of the Singapore Branch, providing customers with all-around services including deposit, settlement, credit card, e-banking and treasury business. The Singapore Branch of ICBC boasts rich experience in running overseas RMB business. As early as in 2002, the Branch launched the services of RMB deposit account opening, and in 2003, it became the first among local banks to offer personal pre-settled remittance services and remittance-related services such as exchanging RMB. After 2009 when China started the cross-border RMB business, the Singapore Branch of ICBC was among the first batch of Chinese banks overseas to win the approval to launch the business. ICBC's RMB products cover settlement, trade finance and forward transactions for corporate clients, remittance, fixed/demand deposit for personal clients, and clearing, inter-bank lending for correspondent banks. As of the end of February, 2011, the balance of RMB deposits at the Singapore Branch of ICBC amounted to almost RMB 2 billion, with trade settlement totaling RMB 12.4 billion.

Being the largest RMB business bank in the world, ICBC has been committed to expanding its cross-border RMB business and extending its strong RMB services overseas over the past two years. In financial strength, ICBC is at the top of the global banks in terms of total RMB assets and settlement volume, and can provide adequate RMB loans with competitive interest rates for customers. In IT support, ICBC is the first commercial bank in the country to centralize and process all transactions from domestic and overseas. The real-time clearing system and centralized clearing model in home and foreign currencies covering transfer, settlement and clearing connect ICBC outlets across the globe under one roof and enable real-time transfer of funds, offering fast and highly efficient settlement services for all customers, as well as laying a solid foundation for ICBC to become a global RMB clearing bank. ICBC views RMB business of strategic importance.

Aggressive programs on service innovation have been initiated in line with the customer requirements. So far, the Bank has concluded numerous groundbreaking cross-border RMB transactions: the world's first usance L/C in RMB, the world's first cross-border fund-raising in RMB, the world's first inflow of funds raised by issuing RMB-denominated bonds in Hong Kong, the world's first open direct trading between RMB and Rouble at overseas foreign exchanges and underwriting the first RMB-denominated bonds in Hong Kong issued by a Taiwanese firm. ICBC is the first-mover in the yuan's internationalization drive. More importantly, ICBC has also set up its own global service network while following its customers to "go global". The RMB service network of ICBC has been expanding worldwide backed by 203 overseas subsidiaries in 28 countries/regions, and 1,453 overseas agency banks located in 132 countries/regions. In less than two years from July, 2009, when the pilot scheme began, to the end of January this year, ICBC has handled cross-border RMB transactions amounting to over RMB 150 billion, ahead of the peers both in terms of business volume and market share.