OREANDA-NEWS. September 07, 2011. The People's Bank of China announced a new policy to expand the pilot regions for doing the cross-border RMB settlement business. By leveraging on the advantages in the existing pilot business, Bank of China has its branches at home and abroad coordinated cross the borders. As soon as the policy was announced, Bank of China began to handle the business in the expanded pilot regions such as Anhui, Gansu, Guizhou, Hebei, Henan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Ningxia, Qinghai, Shanxi and Shaanxi, keeping the leading position among its counterparts. Up to now, Bank of China's cross-border RMB settlement business has covered all the cities, provinces and autonomous regions in China, aiming to provide better support for the enterprises to explore the international market, conduct foreign trade and make investment, reported the press-centre of Bank of China.

Since the cross-border RMB settlement pilot plan was launched in July 2009, Bank of China has been offering great support to both the domestic and foreign enterprises by taking full advantages in the settlement channels, customer base, financial products, expertise and brand image. Since the pilot plan was launched two years ago, the bank's cross-border RMB settlement volume has exceeded RMB 1.4 trillion, ranking the first among its counterparts in terms of the market share. The year 2011 has seen a rapid development for the cross-border RMB settlement business of the bank. From January to July, 2011, the bank's domestic branches handled the cross-border RMB settlement business for thousands of enterprise customers, with the volume being nearly RMB 400 billion, which was 250% of the total volume in 2010; while the market share was over 30%, covering the international market involved with more than 100 countries and regions, thus its leading position was secured.

Bank of China's 23 overseas branches have handled the cross-border RMB settlement business with the volume exceeding RMB 620 billion, which is 280% of the total volume in 2010. Bank of China (Hong Kong), as a participating bank, has handled over RMB 320 billion of such business. It keeps its leading position in Hong Kong in terms of the market shares of cross-border RMB settlement business and RMB deposit business. To date, Bank of China has opened over 500 cross-border clearing accounts in RMB for overseas participating banks in Asia, Europe, America, Oceania and Africa.

As the pilot regions for cross-border RMB settlement are expanded, Bank of China will provide customers with more diversified products and services in a broader range by leveraging on its existing advantages, especially, the advantages in the main channel for cross-border RMB settlement, to become a first-class trade finance bank in the world.