Citibank (China) Co., Ltd. ("Citi China") today announced the completion of the first cross-border lending transaction in Renminbi (RMB) by a foreign bank in China.

This transaction, conducted on behalf of an European food company, is structured to optimize the company's treasury activities by leveraging its China operation's surplus cash. The lending to its group treasury center in Singapore is a critical step to expand and include RMB into the company's treasury management currency basket.

Yigen Pei, Country Head of Citi Transaction Services for China, said, "We are excited to bring this milestone transaction to realization. This creates a new treasury solution which will help our clients to connect China with their regional and global treasury centres and achieve greater efficiency in their global fund usage and allocation. This will also signify important progress of RMB internationalization by establishing a bigger role for the currency in multinationals' treasury manager.”