On March 25, 2016, the signing ceremony of Memorandum of Understanding between the CIPS Operator and SWIFT was held in Beijing. Li Wei, Executive Director of CIPS Operator, Zhang Xin, CEO of CIPS Operator, Alain Raes, SWIFT Chief Executive of Asia Pacific and EMEA, Philippe DIRCKX, SWIFT Marketing Director of Asia Pacific, Huang Meilun, SWIFT Chief Executive of China attended the ceremony. Kang Lin, Deputy Secretary of Payment & Clearing Association of China, was invited to the signing ceremony.
The two parties attach great importance to the strategic cooperation. The Memorandum of Understanding makes clear the intention of the two parties to cooperate on the Cross-border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) Project. CIPS Operator hopes to learn from SWIFT’s advanced experience as well as to use SWIFT’s network to provide global financial industry with efficient and convenient RMB cross-border payment services.
CIPS currently has 19 direct participants and 253 indirect participants located in more than 50 countries and regions across 6 continents around the world. SWIFT serves more than 11,000 banks, securities institutions and business users in more than 200 countries and regions with communication platforms, products and services. More than 1700 financial institutions deal with RMB business via the SWIFT network. Meanwhile, SWIFT has extensive cooperation with more than 100 central banks and payment & settlement system operators.
This strategic cooperation is highly complementary, contributing to internationalization of RMB by offering an efficient, secure and global-covering payment &clearing infrastructure, improvement of CIPS’s influence in the RMB payment& clearing market in the world, as well as better user experience for all system participants.
