OREANDA-NEWS. May 23, 2011. China's foreign trade import and export rang sharp rebound beginning from 2010. ICBC grabbed the opportunity and made a concerted move between overseas subsidiaries and domestic subsidiaries on product innovation to meet the customer requirements, reported the press-centre of ICBC.

As a result, the Bank achieved new breakthrough in international settlement business. 2010 statistics shows that volume of ICBC's international settlement broke through USD 1 trillion for the first time, rising 44% against last year to hit USD 1064.9 billion. The good result not only catapulted ICBC to the top of the domestic ranking, but into the league of world leading international settlement banks as well. During the first quarter of this year, growth of ICBC international settlement business gained unsurpassed momentum to a tune of over USD 300 billion, an approximate 40% jump on the same period a year ago.

Counting the first factor to the stellar performance of ICBC international settlement business is the robust growth of China's foreign trade, said an executive with ICBC. Another inseparable factor is the priority placed by ICBC on emerging markets in moving beyond domestic focus over the past few years. Looking at China's foreign trade import and export starting 2010, China's bilateral economic and trade with emerging countries is moving significantly faster than developed countries, notably ASEAN, Brazil, Russia, South Africa and India. To ICBC, a greater emphasis on emerging market in internationalization strategy dovetails neatly to this new development pattern of foreign trade, creating a good service foundation for the leap-frog progress of international settlement business.
 
Cite ASEAN as an example. In 2010, bilateral trade between China and ASEAN rose 37.5% year-on-year to USD 292.78 billion. While ICBC builds a service chain in ASEAN region by escalating presence in five ASEAN countries (accounting for over 80% of GDP among the 10 ASEAN countries) either setting up branches or through acquisition. The ultimate goal is to seize the opportunity to drive international settlement business in ASEAN region. In 2010, ICBC Singapore's international settlement volume was a staggering USD 72.3 billion, doubling over that in 2009 and chalking up another historic high. Meanwhile, ICBC also sets up or is on the way to set up subsidiaries in Russia, Brazil, India and South Africa, which facilitate customized delivery of settlement and financial services for companies of different countries to advance their trading business. Besides, ICBC has presence in major financial center cities around the world and offers clearing service in various currencies. At present, ICBC is equipped to provide global international settlement services to customers through 203 branches in 28 countries/regions and a global network of 1470 correspondent banks.

While stepping up the subsidiary network to the booming China's bilateral trade regions, ICBC has established a global unified operation platform through the launch of FOVA business system overseas leveraging its industry-leading information technology. Through the platform, all domestic and overseas businesses are processed from one location. The fund clearing system (in home and foreign currency) of ICBC is the best-in-class in terms of straight through rate, with the fastest clearing speed among the domestic peers. Customers can transfer amount between ICBC accounts in China and overseas in real-time via ICBC's real-time clearing system and centralized clearing in home and foreign currency.

On the other side, ICBC centralizes the international settlement/trade processing services in 56 domestic and overseas subsidiaries to the dedicated trade processing center in an effort to ensure the intensified, professional and standardized international settlement/trade processing services. ICBC holds the top slot in terms of centralized business processing. By gathering the most professional staff of all branches oversee one approval standard and operation specification, ICBC improves its business processing efficiency while at the same time lets customers enjoy unified, high-standard trade processing services. Currently, ICBC trade processing centers have processed more than 15,000 transactions intensively in one single month, implying more convenient, faster and highly efficient international trade settlement services are provided to corporate clients.

While taking steps to improve capabilities of international settlement services and service efficiency, ICBC also offers tailored solutions on international settlement and trade finance to foreign trade companies according to the individual needs of the customers. The one-stop service encompassing settlement, financing, wealth management, services in home and foreign currency offers assistance to companies the centralized management of funds, effective control of exchange rate fluctuations and convenient trade finance services. Meanwhile, ICBC also launches unique services such as security deposit ledger for processing trade. In 2010, ICBC has cumulatively processed nearly 12,000 transactions on various security deposit ledger for processing trade, totaling over USD 13.5 billion, which was a significant boost in serving processing trade companies.

Worthy of note is that, ICBC being the world's most important RMB bank is playing an increasingly significant role as the cross-border RMB business is proceeding in full swing. Currently the Bank has opened 200+ RMB accounts for overseas subsidiaries and correspondent banks. ICBC sits comfortably in the top spot with a RMB clearing network among the peers spanning across 52 countries/regions. ICBC grabs this strategic opportunity to push ahead the cross-border RMB business and remains innovative in responding to customer needs. Examples of pioneering cross-border RMB transactions by ICBC are: world's first RMB usance letter of credit, first cross-border RMB credit facility, first RMB bond issuance in Hong Kong and the flow of the renminbi back to domestic China, first open direct trading of RMB against rouble overseas, and underwriting of the first RMB bonds issued in Hong Kong by a Taiwanese firm. ICBC gains first-mover advantage while moving forward RMB to the world. In more than a year from July, 2009 when the pilot on cross-border RMB business started until the end of March this year, ICBC's cross-border RMB business has exceeded RMB 250 billion, where nearly RMB 220 billion coming from cross-border RMB settlements. ICBC ranks No.1 among the banks in China. On March 11, ICBC's first overseas RMB Business Center was inaugurated in Singapore Branch, a prelude to the Bank's large scale expansion of RMB business in overseas.

An ICBC executive said, in the next decade, the increasing role played by China as a large trading country and the accelerating pace toward a super trading power present a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Chinese banks to offer trade finance services. ICBC will continue to leverage its competitive advantages in product, channel, technology, brand and human capital to expand innovation. The goal is to be a "domestic leading, world-class" trade financial services bank, offering highly efficient, top-quality trade finance services to export-oriented enterprises and international companies.