Greater China

The Asia Securities Industry & Financial Markets Association (Asifma) has picked Gene Kim as its new chairman of the board of directors.

A €600m ($673m) fundraising for a unit of China National Chemical Corp has gone into general syndication, following a senior phase where just two banks came on board. The lacklustre demand has caused the leads to increase the fees on offer to help drum up more interest.

China gave a clear signal of its ambitions for the long awaited Cross-Border Interbank Payment System by launching it with a series of debut transactions by China and international banks in at least three different continents. CIPS, which was up and running on October 8, is expected to play a key role in the next stage of RMB internationalisation.

A senior member of Mizuho’s international acquisition finance team for Asia has left the bank.

The Japan Post group has announced price ranges for the long-awaited IPOs of its three units, set to collectively raise ¥1.44tr ($12.03bn) to become the biggest offering this century in the country.

The budding Chinese securitization market has taken another step forward with the National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors (Nafmii) rolling out the first disclosure framework for consumer loan ABS.

Standard Chartered’s latest Renminbi Globalisation Index (RGI) showed a 9.4% month on month boost to 2,312 in August from a revised 2,113 in July. The rise was mainly due a surge in CNH foreign exchange turnover caused by the increased currency volatility since the RMB fixing reform.

Credit Suisse has made two senior hires in Hong Kong, poaching them from rivals Standard Chartered and Morgan Stanley.

ICBCIL Finance, a wholly-owned subsidiary of ICBC, has picked banks to work on its return to the international bond market, in what would only be its second dollar deal.

People’s Bank of China (PBoC) named Bank of China Zambia branch (BoC Zambia) as the latest RMB clearing bank, the central bank said in a statement on 30 September.

China held a series of high level government meetings with the UK and France in September. One of the most publicised pieces of news was the London’s plan for a Stock Connect but perhaps just as important are a number of moves by Euronext to facilitate Chinese investment on its platforms and develop new RMB products.

Taiwanese company Quanta Computer is firming up the mandated lead arranger and bookrunner group for a loan of $400m, four months after winding up a much larger borrowing via subsidiary Quanta International.