UOB sets up cross-border yuan solutions unit

UOB has set up a new unit to help companies manage their cross-border business in yuan, as it seeks to ride on the currency's ongoing internationalisation.

Its "renminbi solutions" team will give companies advice on how "policy and regulatory changes designed to accelerate the internationalisation" of the yuan will affect their business, it said in a press release on Wednesday.

The bank told The Business Times in an email that this team is led by four senior executives and is based in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore.

UOB deputy chairman and chief executive Wee Ee Cheong said in a statement that "the need for renminbi financial solutions has intensified alongside China's rising economic influence as the world's largest trading nation".

Singapore's sole yuan-clearing bank, ICBC Singapore, said in January this year that it had cleared 40 trillion yuan (S$8.7 trillion) since its appointment to the role in February 2013. The bulk of that - 37.5 trillion yuan - was cleared in 2014, it said.

Yuan deposits in Singapore also grew to 257 billion yuan as at June 2014, up 84 per cent from the previous year, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said in August last year.