OREANDA-NEWS. July 26, 2013. BOC White Paper on Cross-border RMB Business (2013) (here in after referred to as  "White Paper") was officially released. It concludes and reviews the development of cross-border RMB businesses in the past four years, while also provides a window for observing and understanding RMB internationalization processes from the customers' perspective.

The White Paper was completed based  on the "Survey on Global Customers' Use of Cross-border RMB Transactions" launched by BOC recently.

According to the survey, domestic and overseas customers maintain a positive expectation for RMB internationalization and show a higher willingness to accept RMB ; amongst the RMB products in cross-border transactions, the most frequently used is the cross-border trade RMB settlement.  Domestic customers attach  great importance to the role of RMB settlement in avoiding exchange rate risks, while overseas customers focus on the stability of RMB value.

The survey also indicates the number of banks that provides overseas RMB supporting services is  insufficient and the service categories are needed to be improved. BOC cross-border RMB services have been recognized by the customers mostly for the reason that BOC has many overseas institutions and enjoys strong cross-border service capabilities, which suggests that the characteristic of BOC's international business has won widespread reputation and recognition  for its cross-border RMB business.

In this survey, BOC issued over 3,000 electronic questionnaires to domestic and oversea customers and collected over 2,900 copies of effective feedbacks. Among those, over 2,200 copies were collected from domestic customers of 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, and more than 700 copies were from overseas customers of almost all countries and regions that trade intensely with China.

In the past four years of pilot cross-border trade RMB settlement, BOC has accumulatively handled more than RMB 6 trillion of cross-border RMB settlements, of which 1.6 trillion was attained from January to June, 2013, up by 56% . Domestic branches achieved a volume of over RMB 780 billion in cross-border RMB settlement, maintaining a domestic market share of about thirty percent and thus firmly occupying the leading position. BOC has formed a relatively complete cross-border RMB product line, with BOC Hong Kong being the most active bank for cross-border RMB business in the offshore market and BOC overseas branches gradually becoming the main channel for local cross-border RMB use and a center of overseas RMB funds.

In recent years, BOC has been continuously improving its cross-border service capabilities and exploring opportunities for RMB internationalization. Therefore, big progresses has been made in gaining advantages in developing network of clearing, global customer resources, professional and technical personnel, and cross-border financial products related to cross-border RMB business; particularly, breakthrough  has been seen in creating the global RMB clearing network. BOC Hong Kong, Macau Branch, Taipei Branch and BOC Malaysia are designated RMB clearing banks respectively in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Malaysia. Recently, BOC has become the first RMB clearing bank recognized by Luxembourg government to comprehensively carry out RMB clearing business there. During the past four years, BOC has opened more than a thousand RMB clearing accounts for overseas branches, covering over 80 countries and regions in the five continents, thereby having gradually formed a global RMB clearing network.