Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the world’s largest bank by assets, is a pioneer in the cross-border cash management industry; it was the first mainland bank to start this business more than a decade ago.
The business, whose deputy general manager is Si Chunxiao, has shown significant growth. By the end of 2020 it had more than 8,700 cross-border cash management clients, including Chinese firms that want to expand overseas as well as many of the top 500 global companies that want to enter the Chinese market. Its services are available in more than 80 countries; the bank has 426 offices in 49 countries.
ICBC is a pioneer in the development of cash-pooling services that integrate both domestic and foreign currencies. This is a critical development where ICBC has played an important role. In the past, companies had to set up two cash pools, one domestically and one overseas. But the People’s Bank of China and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange have been working on combining the two cash pools. ICBC was involved in drafting the regulation, as well as in the decision of choosing Beijing and Shenzhen as the pilot cities to test out the new services.
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