【英语财经】离岸人民币市场竞争加剧 Battle is on for offshore renminbi market

For a sense of how the use of the renminbi is expanding beyond China, it helps to turn to Sanchuan Holding Group, a Chinese hydropower company.

The company is not a household name outside China and probably not much beyond its home base of Hangzhou, a city in eastern China.

But it recently signed up United Overseas Bank in Singapore to handle its cross-border renminbi cash management, to support expansion beyond China.

Lin Jianhua, Sanchuan chief executive, said the Singapore bank approached his company when it learnt that the hydropower group was looking to extend its operations.

“Recognising that we needed to enhance our cross-border liquidity flow, UOB shared with us their strong understanding and insight on China’s financial liberalisation and RMB internationalisation trends, as well as on offshore RMB regulations,” Mr Lin said.

UOB, Singapore’s third-largest bank by assets, has particularly strong connections with ethnic Chinese business in the region, as it traces its roots back 80 years to the Straits Chinese, or Peranakan, who settled in Southeast Asia in the late 19th century.

It is now acting as intermediary for a next wave of outbound Chinese businesses such as Sanchuan and doing so by offering renminbi banking services as Singapore’s role as an offshore renminbi centre grows.

Sam Cheong, head of the foreign direct investment advisory unit at UOB, says that almost half the companies that the bank helps expand into southeast Asia are from China. “Increasingly, we are seeing more of them use renminbi as a settlement currency.”

In June, UOB established a “renminbi solutions team” to help companies better manage their cross-border business in the Chinese currency.

While Hong Kong remains the dominant offshore renminbi centre, China has appointed renminbi clearing banks in Singapore, London, Luxembourg and Taipei and other locations, at the same time agreeing currency swap lines with other central banks and handing out renminbi quotas.

When it comes to handling global payments in the Chinese currency, the addition of other countries on top of market leader Hong Kong as renminbi centres, boosted the share of collective activity by such hubs to 25 per cent of total activity in February. According to Swift, the clearing system, this was up from 17 per cent in February 2013.

While that may create an impression that each centre is competing for a slice of offshore renminbi action, the example of Sanchuan shows that each hub is fulfilling different roles and that they are not necessarily competing directly with each other, even as the total pie is growing.

Singapore, for example, is building itself up as a regional treasury centre for multinational companies, as well as companies emerging from within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and expanding beyond their home markets.

It is also vying with Hong Kong for pole position as Asia’s largest wealth management centre.

“Singapore provides a lot of hedging and liquidity solutions for corporates and is developing wealth management products catering for the potential opening up of overseas outbound investment for Chinese investors,” says Candy Ho, global head of renminbi business development, markets, at HSBC in Hong Kong. “Each of these centres serves different purposes.”

The renminbi has outstripped the Japanese yen, the US dollar and the Hong Kong dollar as the main currency for payments between China and the rest of the Asia-Pacific region over the past four years, according to data from Swift published in May.

The Chinese currency was used in January-April for 31 per cent of payments between China (including Hong Kong) and the rest of the Asia-Pacific region, up from 7 per cent back in April 2012, Swift says.

Singapore is increasingly seen as providing a conduit for use of the renminbi in southeast Asia, building on the Asian city state’s position as a regional entrepot since the 19th century.

Meanwhile London, the world’s largest foreign exchange trading hub, has carved out a role as a big renminbi FX trading centre. In its latest half-yearly survey of the British capital as a renminbi centre, the City of London Corporation found “particularly strong growth” in FX-related businesses in 2014.

Overall trading volumes more than doubled last year, up 143 per cent, from 2013, with average daily volumes reaching $61.5bn, nearly six times as large as those reported in the Corporation’s first survey in 2011.

According to the British Consulate in Hong Kong, London accounted for 42 per cent of all FX trading in renminbi by the third quarter of 2014, compared with 31 per cent at the end of 2013. This equals the share of such trades taking place in Hong Kong.

In Taiwan, interest in the renminbi is largely domestic, focusing on the needs of insurance companies for longer-dated borrowing using so-called Formosa bonds, denominated in renminbi.

But the underlying trend is clear. Internationalisation of the renminbi is being driven by the growing number of offshore centres other than Hong Kong.

（上图说明：香港股票交易所的交易员们正在查看股价。）

想要了解人民币使用范围在海外是如何扩大的，看看中国水电企业——三川控股集团(Sanchuan Holding Group)会有所帮助。

该集团在中国之外谈不上家喻户晓，可能除了在其总部所在地——中国东部城市杭州之外，也没多少人听说过它。

但最近该集团签约了新加坡大华银行(United Overseas Bank)，授权该行为自己处理跨境人民币现金管理业务，支持集团的海外扩张。

三川控股集团董事长兼总裁林建华说，当得知该水电集团正在寻求业务扩张时，大华银行找到了他的公司。

“认识到我们需要提升跨境资金流动，大华银行与我们分享了他们对中国金融自由化、人民币国际化趋势以及离岸人民币管理的深刻理解和洞见，”林建华说。

作为新加坡资产规模第三大的银行，大华银行与东南亚地区的华商群体之间有着特别强大的纽带，该行的成立可以溯源至80年前的海峡华人(Straits Chinese)或土生华人(Peranakan)——19世纪晚期他们开始在东南亚定居。（海峡华人或土生华人，一般泛指在海外、尤其是新加坡,马六甲和槟城等“海峡殖民地”出生的华侨及其后裔等；海峡殖民地，是指18世纪后期至20世纪中期英国在马六甲海峡的殖民地，包括槟城、新加坡、马六甲和拉布安——译者注）

随着新加坡作为离岸人民币中心的地位不断增强，如今大华银行在中国企业（例如三川）新一波走出去浪潮中扮演着中间人角色，并通过提供人民币银行业服务实现这种作用。

大华银行外国直接投资咨询部主管张志坚(Sam Cheong)说，在该行帮助将业务扩展到东南亚的企业中，几乎一半来自中国。“我们看到更多企业越来越多地使用人民币作为结算货币。”

今年6月，大华银行成立了“人民币解决方案团队”，帮助企业更好地管理跨境人民币业务。

虽然香港仍是占主导地位的离岸人民币中心，但中国已经在新加坡、伦敦、卢森堡和台北及其他地区指定了人民币清算银行，同时还与其他央行达成了货币互换额度并发放人民币配额。

当计算用人民币处理的全球支付量时，除了作为市场领导者的香港，其他国家也成为离岸人民币中心，这些中心2月的人民币交易量上升至全球人民币支付总量的25%。根据清算系统Swift的数据，这比2013年2月的17%有所上升。

虽然这可能造成一种印象，即每个中心都在争夺离岸人民币的蛋糕，但三川的案例表明，每个中心都在完成不同的角色，而且在总规模正在增长之际，它们并不必然直接互相竞争。

例如，新加坡正在将自身打造成跨国公司以及从东盟(ASEAN)内部崛起并向海外市场扩张的企业的地区财富中心。

新加坡还在与香港争夺冲击亚洲最大财富管理中心宝座的领先地位。

“新加坡为企业提供了大量套期保值和流动性解决方案，而且在开发财富管理产品，以迎合未来对中国投资者海外投资的放开，”香港汇丰(HSBC)市场部人民币业务发展全球主管何嘉仪(Candy Ho)，“每个中心都服务于不同的目的。”

Swift今年5月发布的数据显示，过去4年，在中国与亚太其他国家或地区的结算支付中，人民币已经超过日元、美元和港元成为主要支付货币。

Swift称，今年1至4月，中国（包括香港）与亚太其他国家或地区的结算支付中，人民币的使用比例达到了31%，而该比例在2012年4月仅为7%。

新加坡越来越被看作为人民币在东南亚的使用提供了一条渠道，这主要建立在这个亚洲城市国家自19世纪以来的地区贸易中心地位的基础上。

与此同时，世界最大外汇交易中心伦敦也已经成为大型人民币外汇交易中心。在对作为人民币中心的伦敦的最新半年调查中，伦敦金融城公司(City of London Corporation)发现，2014年与外汇交易相关的企业“增长特别强劲”。

去年的总交易量增加了一倍多，自2013年以来上涨了143%，日均交易量达到了615亿美元，几乎是该公司2011年首次调查所报告交易量的6倍。

英国驻香港总领事馆数据显示，截至2014年第三季度，伦敦占了所有人民币外汇交易的42%，而2013年年底该比例为31%。这与香港所占的交易份额相当。

在台湾，对人民币的兴趣主要是在内部，聚焦于保险公司的需求，后者希望利用以人民币计价的所谓宝岛债券(Formosa bond)获得更长期的贷款。

但潜在的趋势很明确。人民币国际化正受到香港以外越来越多离岸中心的驱动。

译者/陈隆祥