BoC NY Unit To Enable Yuan Online Payments

Bank of China’s New York branch will enable mainland firms to receive payment in yuan rather than dollars from their sales on US e-commerce platforms this year, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.

Pledging to introduce more services for small and medium-sized enterprises engaged in cross-border trade between the United States and China, executives from the branch said payment in yuan would be possible by tapping new functions of e-MPay, a cross-border payment system launched by the branch in 2016.

The branch is developing a system using an existing platform to “facilitate trade finance for e-commerce players,” said Xu Chen, president and chief executive officer of Bank of China USA, Xinhua reported, without providing further details.

The system will adhere to US anti-money laundering rules through artificial intelligence and cyber security technologies, Xu added.

Bank of China has run into problems with overseas anti-money laundering regulations in the past. In February 2017, it agreed to pay a 600,000 euro (HK$5.4 million) fine to settle a case involving its Milan branch. Prosecutors had alleged more than 4.5 billion euros was smuggled to China from Italy between 2006 and 2010.

A unit of fellow state-owned bank Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) last year settled money laundering charges in the United States.(Reuters)