China

HFT Investment Management (HFT IM), the joint venture between BNP Paribas Investment Partners and Haitong Securities, has appointed Shanghai-based Patrick Liu as its new chief executive officer.

Deutsche Bank this week priced the biggest Formosa bond so far in 2015, in what was its third issue on Taiwan's renminbi-denominated bond market this year.

The Chinese and Hong Kong equity capital markets have been thriving since April, as relaxed capital controls on the Stock Connect fired up business. It’s only normal now for other markets to want to follow suit, with talks of Taiwan-Shanghai and Taiwan-Shanghai-Hong Kong links doing the rounds. The thinking is bold, but replicating the success of the Connect will not be easy.

Deutsche Bank is taking orders for its third Formosa bond this year, with the five year deal generating more than Rmb1.5bn ($242m) of interest so far, according to two sources close to the deal.

Hungary is busy positioning itself as the first potential offshore renminbi hub in Central and Eastern Europe. Its central bank, Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB), launched an RMB initiative earlier this year to push Budapest's credentials and Daniel Palotai, the bank's executive director for monetary policy, spoke to GlobalRMB about the bank’s plans.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift) is poised to play an important role in China's upcoming offshore renminbi Cross-border Inter-bank Payment System (CIPS).

China’s KaiLong, a property investor and manager, is seeking to raise S$200m ($150.27m) by floating its industrial parks in Shanghai as a real estate investment trust (Reit) on the Singapore stock exchange.

Shenzhen Qianhai Financial Holdings has tied up an Rmb500m ($81.7m) term loan with a group of five lenders in a transaction that marks the first Hong Kong-Qianhai cross-border renminbi syndication. Though the financing demonstrates appetite by banks in Hong Kong for offshore renminbi deals, onshore loosening will likely crimp further business coming their way.

The RMB qualified foreign institutional investors (RQFII) programme saw its sharpest monthly acceleration ever in April 2015. The programme, which launched in 2011, saw the State Administration of Foreign Exchange give out Rmb33.9bn ($5.5bn) in quotas in a single month across four jurisdictions.

The latest data from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift) shows that the renminbi has returned to fifth place in the ranking of most active global payments currencies, accounting for 2.03% of payments worldwide in March 2015.

In this round-up, Macau RMB deposits and cross-border RMB trade settlement fall in February, ICBC launches RMB clearing in Thailand, the Shanghai FTZ expands four-fold, and Kenya hopes to become the RMB hub in Africa.

The most eagerly awaited of all quota approvals came on Thursday with the news that the People's Bank of China (PBoC) had finally granted a Rmb50bn ($8.6bn) renminbi qualified foreign institutional investor (RQFII) quota to Luxembourg, a world leading domicile for investment funds.