Bank of China, the country’s fourth-largest lender by assets, has said it expects to see continued exponential growth in cross-border renminbi trade settlement as more companies in China and around the world choose to pay and be paid in the Chinese currency.
Total cross-border renminbi settlement last year hit Rmb510bn ($77.6bn) after the central bank expanded a pilot project allowing Chinese and foreign companies to settle trade transactions in renminbi. BoC’s branches across mainland China handled Rmb160bn, or 28 per cent of all the cross-border trade settled in renminbi last year, making it the market leader in the promising new business.
That figure was 100 times the Rmb1.6bn of renminbi cross-border trade it handled in 2009, due to the relaxation in China’s strict currency controls and Beijing’s efforts to internationalise the renminbi.