Over the last couple of months there have been many developments in RMB usage and announcement as RMB usage reached new heights, including:

• Standard Chartered Renminbi Globalisation Index passed the 2,000-mark, rising 1.25% to 2,016 in October from the previous month mainly driven by Renminbi deposit growth as FX turnover and Dim Sum bond performances remained lacklustre. On a year-on-year comparison, the 64.5% growth rate is the slowest in 13 months. Going forward, growth in the RGI is expected to remain slow but steady in the medium term. Offshore Renminbi developments in Taiwan and Korea are likely to gather momentum further on increased deposit creation and favourable policy initiatives respectively. For instance, won-yuan direct trading was launched on 1 December. Standard Chartered expects this will help reduce overall exchange costs by 0.06-0.1ppt via KRW-CNH trading from the previous KRW-USD-CNH trading.

• Carlisle to establish China USD cash pool with BAML: Carlisle Companies won SAFE approval for a China domestic US dollar cash pool in the Shanghai FTZ, but holds off on cross-border implementation over FATCA concerns.
• Citi, in November, signed an agreement with a major consumer company to execute RMB cross-border pooling transactions outside SFTZ
• Standard Chartered announced that they have been awarded a global RMB mandate to support Shell’s domestic China business, and their offshore accounts centralised in Singapore.
• Deutsche Bank executed the first two-way Renminbi (‘RMB’) cash sweep in Shanghai since PBoC’s RMB cross-border pilot was extended nationwide in November 2014 (circular PBoC [2014] No. 324). This was for Koninklijke DSM NV (‘DSM’) a global science-based company active in the health, nutrition and materials sectors. Anthony Lin, Head of Corporate Bank and Trade Finance & Cash Management Corporates in China at Deutsche Bank, said: “By using Deutsche Bank’s automated solution, DSM will be able to set target balances for better liquidity management at a group level. At the same time, the stable source of RMB liquidity can provide a natural hedge for its offshore RMB transactions, thereby creating additional cost efficiencies. ” 

• ICBC Singapore RMB clearing processes 37.5trn in 2014 growing more than 1,300% from 2.6trn in 2013. ICBC is the sole RMB clearer for Singapore clearing from 90 participating institutions form 38 markets. ICBC said that their next priority will be implement a 24/7 clearing services based on RTGS to reinforce Singapore’s leadership as an offshore RMB market.
• Arup Group and HSBC auto RMB sweep outside of Shanghai FTZ. Arup on December 8 completed an automated, cross-border renminbi sweep between Shanghai and London. Arup believe that the end-of-day sweeping structure will help support business growth in China through improved liquidity with its head office.