OREANDA-NEWS. November 26, 2013. In recent years, as Chinese companies were gathering pace to "go global", ICBC became the first bank in China to launch global cash management services to cope with their demands. ICBC’s "one stop" cash management services around the world are now available in nearly 50 countries/territories.

As at the end of September this year, ICBC had 3650+ corporate clients using global cash management service with totally more than 9,400 accounts opened. During the first three quarters this year, 319 new customers opened 851 global cash management accounts with ICBC.

The global cash management is an integrated service involving management of global accounts, collection and disbursement, liquidity management, as well as information, investment and financing. ICBC’s domestic and overseas subsidiaries and partner banks use ICBC’s fund settlement network across the globe to support customers’ cash management across borders. The globalization of the world economy has driven more and more companies to focus on the group-wide capital control, and global liquidity and risk management. This creates a good opportunity for commercial banks to expand their global cash management business.

According to an ICBC official, in the third quarter this year ICBC set up the first cross-border real cash pool (in USD) for a multinational corporation to pool or allocate funds among accounts in designated countries/territories. ICBC also provided the customer with information service to help manage 39 accounts opened in 8 countries/territories (including Hong Kong, Czech, Russia, Singapore). In this way, the customer could better manage and control the capital outside China. Today, ICBC global cash management services represent a convenient and high value-added service system, covering global account opening, payment authorization, SWIFT service, account enquiry, service for overseas employees, centralized payment and cash pooling.

From the year to date, more and more customers have begun to manage cash balances through SWIFT network ,with an increasing number of customers signing up ICBC's SWIFT services, said an executive with the Bank. At present, ICBC offers a range of services to multinational companies through SWIFT network encompassing account enquiry, statement service, centralized payment, debit/credit advices and sending/receiving SWIFT-standard or customized messages.