(Source: Yicai Global)
As the Belt and Road Initiative continues to advance, Chinese companies are accelerating their "going global" efforts, and are often faced with financial needs during international cooperation. As a systemically important bank in China, CIB actively enhances its "online + offline," "local currency + foreign currency," "commercial banking + investment banking," "domestic + international," and "in-zone + out-of-zone" one-stop cross-border financial service system, innovates financial products, and improves the quality and efficiency of financial services, safeguarding Chinese enterprises as they "ride the waves" and promoting the optimization and upgrading of foreign trade structures. From January to October 2024, CIB's cross-border RMB settlement volume exceeded RMB 1.7 trillion, with outstanding cross-border financial financing balance exceeding RMB 200 billion.
"30 Billion in 10 Days" – Cross-Border Guarantees Secure Contract Performance for Enterprises
Cross-border new energy projects, due to their large investment amounts, long delivery timelines, extended operational cycles, and high maintenance costs, typically require specialized cross-border financial services from creditworthy commercial banks to ensure transaction security and smooth contract execution. Leveraging its expertise in green finance and extensive network of domestic and international correspondent banks, CIB efficiently issues cross-border advance payment guarantees and performance guarantees for Chinese enterprises, actively supporting the high-quality "Made-in-China" initiative's global expansion.
Recently, Jinko Solar (Haining) Co., Ltd., a photovoltaic company based in Haining, Zhejiang province, secured a cross-border RMB order for photovoltaic modules from Thailand, totaling RMB 30 billion.
Along with the large order came high demands and requirements for an advance payment guarantee. "Typically, it takes domestic banks about 15 days to issue a guarantee," Yang Qiuling, Deputy Director of Jinko's Financing Department told the reporter. Failure to issue the guarantee more efficiently could lead to delays in shipment and an increased risk of default.
Jinko immediately approached several banks. However, only CIB accepted the challenge.
"Jinko is a strategic client of our head office, and we maintain at least weekly on-site meetings. Even before the client signed the relevant agreements, we were aware of the situation and assured them that we could handle it," Chen Tianyu, Account Manager at the Haining Branch of CIB Hangzhou Division, told the reporter.
Facing challenges such as the large number of guarantees, long durations, complex texts, and tight timelines of this project, the Haining Branch of CIB Jiaxing Division responded quickly by devising a financial service plan and establishing a four-tier collaboration model involving the head office, Hangzhou Division, Jiaxing Division, and Haining Branch. The issuance of all advance payment guarantees was completed in just 10 days.
In 2024, in addition to Jinko, CIB also issued a green cross-border advance payment guarantee of EUR 1.5 million for the overseas sales center of a leading new energy enterprise in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, and issued a cross-border guarantee of USD 209 million for a listed company in Anhui province, assisting them in successfully signing the world's largest energy storage project of 7.8 GWh with a Saudi company. Cross-border guarantee services are playing an increasingly significant role amid the surge of Chinese enterprises going global. From January to October 2024, CIB issued a cumulative total of 554 cross-border guarantees, amounting to RMB 35.176 billion.
"From 3 hours to 20 seconds" - Direct Inward Remittance Eases Corporate Settlement Anxieties
"Many times, we have to race against the clock to process receivables and payments; that's the only way to avoid disrupting the business!" said Wang Xuefeng of EasySpeed Supply Chain Co., Ltd, reflecting on cross-border fund settlements.
Based in Shenzhen, EasySpeed is an international freight forwarding company mainly engaged in air and sea freight. With the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce, EasySpeed faces challenges in capital turnover efficiency. The surge in customer orders has increased the frequency and timeliness requirements for receivables and payments, posing new demands on traditional cross-border settlement services.
To help enterprises improve their capital turnover efficiency, CIB has innovatively launched a direct inward remittance product for shipping companies. This product simplifies business processing flows, enables intelligent system reviews, and achieves automatic crediting. The time required for a single crediting transaction is reduced from 3 hours to 20 seconds, precisely addressing the pain points of freight companies requiring rapid capital turnover with relatively fixed counterparts. This product is of unique advantages particularly in scenarios involving the collection of freight fees. From January to October 2004, CIB's direct inward remittance product handled over 12,000 transactions nationwide, with a total settlement amount of USD 577 million.
Reportedly, the direct inward remittance product is part of CIB's "Shipping Financial Service Solution" launched this year. This solution leverages the Industrial Steward (Dan Zheng Tong) platform to provide shipping and logistics industry clients with a variety of cross-border financial services, including domestic foreign currency freight express payment, customs duty payment, payroll disbursement for shipping companies, electronic documents, cross-border financing, and foreign exchange risk hedging. In addition, the solution has introduced an online non-financial module for shipping, offering clients timely exchange rate information and strategic analysis, financial sanctions consultancy and one-on-one expert services. Currently, the solution has served thousands of shipping and logistics companies.
An Innovative Product Matrix to Help Chinese Enterprises Accelerate Their Global Expansion
The financial needs of different industries for "going global" vary significantly. For commercial banks, it is crucial to provide targeted cross-border financial services.
In recent years, CIB has actively contributed to China's high-level opening-up, continuously increasing financial support for foreign trade development. The bank has launched a series of new cross-border service products and expanded various cross-border service scenarios, steadily improving its international business service capabilities.
By building a cross-border e-commerce foreign exchange business management platform and a foreign exchange fund clearing and settlement network, CIB's cross-border e-commerce comprehensive service solution covers global mainstream e-commerce platforms, provides an all-in-one solution for the entire process of cross-border payments and receipts. It enables fully electronic processing of account opening, cross-border receipts, and fund settlement, while effectively integrating 'financial + non-financial' services to provide comprehensive financial services for various entities in the cross-border e-commerce ecosystem, assisting compliant overseas operations and secure payments and receipts. The featured settlement product "Domestic Foreign Currency Freight Express Payment" uses OCR intelligent recognition and blockchain technology to enable a fully online, intelligent, and convenient process.
CIB's international business also boasts a comprehensive line of trade financing products, offering enterprises full-process credit enhancement services from document receipt to customs declaration and payment, and from preparation of goods to delivery and collection. The bank has fully digitized mainstream cross-border trade financing products, allowing enterprises to access banking services without leaving their premises. For example, the 'automatic issuance' service of international letters of credit can complete issuance in as little as 2 hours. Additionally, CIB has extensive experience in international syndicated loans, successfully leading or participating in several influential international syndicated loan projects.
While providing financing, CIB also offers intellectual support for Chinese enterprises going global. On one hand, the bank connects with cross-border public service platforms around the world and creates policy-sharing windows to realize information sharing among enterprises, governments and banks, and synchronize with the development of emerging trade models. On the other hand, by leveraging the group's research capabilities, CIB provides clients with in-depth analysis of macroeconomics, industry, commodities, and foreign exchange markets. This aids enterprises in understanding international trends and industry prospects while guiding them in using forward contracts, swaps, and options to manage exchange rate risks, thereby supporting the steady development of their cross-border business.