OREANDA-NEWS. May 08, 2014. ICBC Singapore Branch boasted the RMB cleaing volume of over RMB 10 trillion as of April 8, 2014, in which the peak volume on a single day increased from RMB 2 billion to close to RMB 300 billion, promoting the construction of Singapore offshore RMB center.

Since the beginning of this year, the RMB clearing volume of Singapore Branch has reached RMB6.9 trillion amid accelerating business development, 2.7 times of the volume for the whole of previous year. 73 local and foreign banks have opened RMB settlement accounts with Singapore Branch, expanding its RMB settlement service to 33 countries and regions. Meanwhile, the total assets and RMB deposit of Singapore Branch doubled compared with the beginning of the year.

An executive with ICBC indicated that the rapid development of RMB clearing business in Singapore Branch was a sign of growing RMB cross-border trading, which was backed up by ICBC’s enhanced automatic clearing process and the increasing service capacity of its RMB settlement system and network. For example, Singapore Branch reformed its cross-border remittance process to make it centralized and fast. Formalized business process has helped increase the direct connection rate of cross-border remittance messages to over 80%, reaching international advanced level. 
 
Increasingly enriched clearing products also contributed to the rapid development of RMB clearing business. In addition to safe and efficient fundamental clearing service, Singapore Branch provided financial market products and liquidity support to participating banks like RMB monetary market finance, RMB FX spot, forward and swap transactions, cross-border RMB purchase and sale, RMB time deposit and daylight overdraft. It is the only RMB clearing bank equipped with RMB daylight overdraft service for overseas participating banks. Many new products and new services will be innovated and rolled out like cash distribution, mortgage finance, and fund raising through agency RMB bond issuance and payment and settlement of principal and interest. The bond capital market team of Singapore Branch, the first of its kind in Chinese banks, sold RMB2 billion “Lion City bonds” in last November, acclaimed by the market. After the introduction of new policies in Shanghai free trade zone, Singapore Branch pioneered in rolling out many innovative businesses like cross-border fund pool and RMB direct loan in the area.

An ICBC official said that the Singapore clearing bank is working closely with the Monetary Authority of Singapore to accelerate the development of local RMB real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system and build up enhanced financial service facilities by leveraging ICBC’s strength in RMB business to sharpen its competitiveness in Singapore RMB market and facilitate RMB cross-border trading.