An agreement between China Merchants Bank (CMB) and SWIFT will address the cross-border settlement (CBS) and cash management needs of Chinese corporates.
China Merchants Bank (CMB) has reached agreement with SWIFT to set up a dedicated SWIFT infrastructure, including a suite of SWIFT Alliance products, to be available to Chinese corporate clients. As part of the project, CMB’s treasury management application, CBS, will be integrated with SWIFT connectivity as a total solution for these joint clients.
The development builds on an agreement between CMB and SWIFT at Sibos 2015 in Singapore to extend cooperation and to explore the idea of a ‘SWIFT-CBS Cloud for corporates’. “It is an innovative partnership model in China,” says Stella Lim, head of corporate sales, Asia Pacific, SWIFT. “With the SWIFT-CBS Cloud model, a complete SWIFT infrastructure and CMB cash management solution will be available as a total solution to corporate clients of both organisations. This is a great collaboration to allow corporates to easily manage their domestic and cross-border transactions through the SWIFT-CBS platform.”
CMB is now preparing for implementation of the new infrastructure. Once the requisite hardware and software has been installed, new corporate clients will experience quicker and more cost-effective implementation than is currently available. “As it’s a shared infrastructure, adding one more end-point is a simple and straightforward process,” says Lim. In the past, on-boarding a corporate client could take three to four months.
“More than 800 corporate groups in China use our CBS application and many of these have cross-border settlement needs,” says Mr. Zuo Chuanghong, general manager of transaction banking department, CMB. “We think this solution will appeal to those relatively small and medium corporates seeking to join SWIFT with a lower cost of entry and streamlined IT infrastructure.”
He describes the launch of the ‘SWIFT-CBS Cloud for corporates’ as a win-win-win model. “It enhances the competitive advantage of CBS as a flagship product to our corporate customers, equips CMB and its clients with improved cross-border cash management capability and enables SWIFT to leverage the CBS customer base to extend its corporate reach in China,” he says. “At the same time, joint corporate clients can greatly benefit from a more cost-effective and simpler STP solution.”（News source：SWIFT）
