The latest figures showed that in the first 6 months of 2013, the amount of FDI in China increased to US$61.98bn, a 4.9% increase compared to the first 6 months in 2012. Although the future of Chinese economy is under the threat of slower GDP growth, the figure illustrates that foreign investors are still interested in China as an investment destination. 

The latest figure showed that in the first 6 month, 2013, the amount of FDI in China increased to $61.98bn, a 4.9% increase compared to the first 6 months in 2012. . Although the future of Chinese economy is under the treat of slower down GDP growth rate, the figure illustrated that the foreign investors’ passion of investing in China remained at a high level in the first half of 2013.

Considered one of the best retail banks in China, China Merchant Bank (CMB) has started their private banking business in 2007. At the end of 2012, CMB's pre-tax profit from their private banking business reached 2.3 billion yuan. Other major banks in China have similarly increased their wealth management profit since 2010, when growth of the market really accelerated.

ICBC and BOC still have the largest private banking AUM among the top 5 while CMB has the most private banking centers to serve its HNWI customers. The high net worth customer segment (over 10M RMB in investable assets) is growing at 18% growth rate and reached to 700,000 by the end of 2012. It seems that banks have finally cracked the code and wealth management is set to grow in China. 

According to SWIFT (the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication), the Chinese Yuan (or RMB)'s share of global payments hit a new record high of 0.84% in May 2013, after the total value of yuan payment around the world increased sharply by 24% last month, compared with the average growth rate of 1.9% across other currencies. SWIFT also pointed out that China yuan is still the 13th most-used currency in the international trade. The growing demand for RMB settlement will continue to increase the use of yuan in future.

According to the specific targets for China’s EMV migration set by the PBOC, from January 1st 2015, all RMB settlement cards issued in economically advanced regions should be in the form of financial IC cards; most banks have sped up the issuance of financial IC cards since 2012.

By the end of 2012, the total circulation of IC cards exceed 100 million, growing by 320%, and right now 98% of total POS terminals and 96% of ATMs in the market have already been upgrade to support the financial IC cards. It is expected that the total number of financial IC cards in China will hit 200 million in 2013 and continuously surge to 600 million by the end of 2015.

As part of Kapronasia's continuing webinar series, our next webinar on July 10th will be looking at Operational Risk Management in China's banking system. Given the events of recent weeks, risk management is once again key consideration for Chinese banks. To register for the webinar, please click here. 

With the liquidity crunch increasing in June and the interbank rate jumping to new highs, many state-owned banks are attempting to use the increased average wealth management product (WMP) yield to ease the tightened liquidity. Based on data from JRJ, the average monthly WMP yields in major state-owned banks increased in June compared to May based on the monthly average yields of the top 10 WMP in the bank. The average yields increased from 3.84% to 4.38% in the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), 4.16% to 4.57% in the Bank of China (BOC), 3.77% to 4.11% in the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), and 3.58% to 4.44% in China Construction Bank (CCB).

Recently, Google managed to beat its rivals including Apple and Facebook to buy Waze, an Israeli mobile-navigation startup. Google will pay for more than $1 billion for this relatively unknown company. Similarly in China. One month ago, Alibaba, a global B2B giant, invested about $3 billion into Amap, China’s leading map and local based services provider which made Alibaba Amap’s biggest shareholder. Other China’s internet giants, Tencent and Baidu have also been focusing on their mobile map offerings.

We mentioned earlier this week that there had been a sharp uptick in the Shanghai Interbank rate in the past month. This peaked last night at about 13%. With the attention, rightly so, that this is getting, it's worth taking a look at the issue and what's involved. 

According to China Mobile, China’s largest mobile network operator, its monthly mobile payment transaction value, for the first time, exceeded 10 billion RMB, reaching 11 billion in May – even larger than the total transaction value of 2011.

Since China Mobile launched its mobile payment business in 2009, the number of transaction has rocketed at a staggering rate and it is expected that by the end of 2013 the total transaction value will hit 100 billion RMB. In the future, China Mobile will emphasize more on product innovation and customer services to reinforce its leading position in China’s mobile payment industry.

According to data released by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the interbank lending rate (weighted average interest rate) increased from 2.55% in April 2013 to 2.92% in May which will affect banking liquidity requirements. The interbank lending rate decreased from 2.77% to 2.47% in March, and it started to increase in April and May. The interbank lending rate in May is 0.42% higher year on year. The total interbank lending turnover was 21.85 trillion yuan, and the daily turnover reached 993 billion yuan.