New clearing institution established to serve city commercial banks

Shanghai on Saturday made another important step toward its construction of an international financial center by welcoming a new clearing company offering professional services to more than 100 city commercial banks in the country.

Approved by the People’s Bank of China, or the central bank, as one of the chartered clearing institutions, this new clearing company will provide efficient, convenient and safe payment and liquidation services for small and medium-sized financial institutions like city commercial banks, thereby helping boost the development of small and micro enterprises and private economy.

The move will further broaden domestic payment and clearing channels, enhance the capacity of payment and clearing services, and effectively prevent systemic financial risks, authorities said.

Fan Yifei, vice governor of the central bank, said they have spent a lot of efforts on setting up such a new company in a bid to build a multi-level payment service system and better serve the development of the real economy.

Wu Qing, vice mayor of Shanghai, made the remark that the settlement marked a great leap of the city’s efforts toward building a global financial hub and the government welcomes more financial infrastructures including foreign-funded payment and clearing institutions to participate in Shanghai’s new round of financial reform and opening-up.