China’s yuan makes waves on international currency markets
The Vancouver Sun -
Traders say the yuan’s rise as the biggest move in global currency since the euro’s introduction
Evidence the yuan is becoming truly global can be found in Rongrong Huo’s passport, which shows the HSBC banker bouncing from Switzerland to South Africa fielding inquiries from a growing number of clients on how they can trade China’s currency.
“The market potential is huge,” Huo, who heads HSBC’s yuan business development for Europe, said in an interview after returning to London from Warsaw. “Companies are asking, how can we make progress on this front? And investors are asking, how can we bring the yuan into our asset allocation? It’s encouraging to see the engagement. It’s about the future.”
Three years after China allowed the yuan to start trading in Hong Kong’s offshore market, banks and investors around the world are positioning themselves to get involved in what Nomura Holdings Inc. calls the biggest revolution in the $5.3 trillion currency market since the creation of the euro in 1999.
Daily yuan transactions surged to $120 billion in April from $34 billion in 2010, making it the ninth most-traded currency in the world, according to a September report by the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland.
Merk Investments LLC in Palo Alto, Calif. said it’s adding “as much as” it can of offshore yuan to its $450 million of funds. Union Bank NA, a unit of Bank of Tokyo- Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd., is pushing wealthy clients to diversify their savings into yuan deposits, while CME Group Inc., the largest futures exchange, began offering trading in offshore yuan derivatives in February.
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Source: http://www.oneworldchronicle.com/?p=18161
