Bank of China
In 2019, Bank of China and its offshore subsidiaries completed $5.2 trillion of international trading transactions. It also conducted Rmb7.32 trillion ($1 trillion) of cross-border renminbi payments. Both numbers put it in the top spot, not just in China, but in the world.
The bank also leads in cross-border guarantees. By the end of 2019, the outstanding amount of letters of guarantee, including financial and performance guarantees, reached Rmb1.05 trillion.
Bank of China also offers a wide range of trade finance products, including cross-border remittance and multi-currency import financing.
Despite its size, Bank of China is not just about large state-owned clients. The bank upgraded its financial services plan for cross- border e-commerce last year, helping these smaller vendors with matchmaking, financing and payment. It also provides tax and fee financing services for small and medium-sized enterprises.
The bank continued to use Bank of China Hong Kong (BOCHK) as a testing ground for new functions in trade finance. Last year, BOCHK became the first bank in Hong Kong to connect to eTradeConnect, a blockchain-based trade finance platform launched by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority in October 2018 to digitalize the trade finance process and reduce risks. By 2019, BOCHK had opened access to more than 90 application programming interfaces and worked with more than 130 partners.
While the global economy has suffered from trade protectionism and the Covid-19 pandemic recently, the Chinese government will continue to treat stable foreign trade as one of its top priorities in the coming years.