General

Recently, the People's Bank of China issued the "Notice on Supporting Cross-border RMB Settlement in New Formats of Foreign Trade" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"), requiring the cross-border RMB settlement business to serve the real economy, promote trade and investment facilitation, and support the development of new foreign trade formats. .

The "Notice" pointed out that on the basis of the three principles of "know your customer", "know your business" and "due diligence", domestic banks may cooperate with non-bank payment institutions (hereinafter referred to as payment institutions) that have obtained Internet payment business licenses in accordance with the law. , Cooperate with legally qualified clearing institutions to provide cross-border RMB settlement services under the current account for market transaction entities and individuals.

The "Notice" clarifies that payment institutions participating in the provision of cross-border RMB settlement services stipulated in this Notice shall meet the following conditions. The first is to register in China and obtain the Internet payment business license according to law. The second is the real cross-border business needs of using RMB for cross-border settlement. The third is to have a sound internal control system and full-time personnel related to cross-border business, and be able to do a good job in merchant information collection and access management, transaction information collection, and cross-border business authenticity and legality review in accordance with the requirements of this notice and relevant regulations. Fourth, it has specific systems and measures related to anti-money laundering, anti-terrorist financing, and anti-tax evasion related to cross-border RMB settlement services; it has efficient anti-money laundering, anti-terrorist financing, and anti-tax evasion system processing and docking capabilities for cross-border RMB settlement services. Fifth, abide by relevant national laws and regulations, operate in compliance with regulations, and have strong risk control capabilities, and no serious violations have occurred in the past two years.

The "Notice" emphasizes that when domestic banks and payment institutions provide cross-border RMB settlement services, they shall fulfill their obligations of anti-money laundering, anti-terrorist financing, and anti-tax evasion in accordance with the law, and abide by relevant regulations on cracking down on cross-border gambling, telecommunication network fraud, and illegally engaging in payment institution business. .

The "Notice" will come into force on July 21, 2022. The People's Bank of China will steadily promote the implementation of the "Notice", provide good supporting financial services for market players in new foreign trade formats, and give full play to cross-border RMB business to serve the real economy and promote foreign trade. The positive role of the high-quality development of new formats supports and guides the healthy and sustainable innovation and development of new formats and models of foreign trade, and helps stabilize the macroeconomic market.