Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- What are the benefits of promoting the reengineering of commercial banks' foreign exchange business processes?
Xinhua News Agency reporter Liu Kaixiong.
Recently, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) promulgated the Administrative Measures for Banks' Foreign Exchange Business (for Trial Implementation), which will come into force on January 1, 2024. This policy is very professional and promotes the reengineering of commercial banks' foreign exchange business processes, but it is very affordable for enterprises and allows them to better enjoy the dividends of foreign exchange facilitation measures.
Aspect 1: "Reducing the burden" for enterprises
The business development measures break the path dependence of previous risk prevention on the process link, further improve the efficiency of banks' foreign exchange business, and enhance the level of cross-border investment and financing facilitation. Wang Chunying, deputy director and spokesman of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, said.
In layman's terms, it is necessary to change the business habits of banks to "review by pen" and "check each case" of enterprises' foreign-related business, strengthen the identification and classification of customers in advance and the monitoring and reporting after the event, and "reduce the burden" for compliant enterprises.
Within this whole-process business framework, banks are required to do due diligence on customers in advance, classify customers and implement differentiated audit measures, so as to create a market environment where "the more honest the better".
The measures have been carried out on a pilot basis in four commercial banks for a period of time, and the pilot results have been good.
A company operating lithium electronic batteries in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, is a high-quality customer of China Minsheng Bank Suzhou Branch. Since the Suzhou Branch of China Minsheng Bank launched the pilot reform of foreign exchange business, the internal process of handling foreign-related business and the time for handling relevant business in the bank have been greatly reduced, from about 3 days to half a day.
Judging from the pilot effect, many enterprises have reported that they have truly enjoyed the benefits brought by the facilitation measures, the efficiency of cross-border business has been improved, and the cost of business handling has been reduced. Xu Feng, general manager of the transaction banking department of China Minsheng Bank, said.
In addition, the measures absorb the current facilitation reform experience, form a general framework for foreign exchange business facilitation, unify and simplify the process, and high-quality customers can enjoy the existing facilitation measures under the current account and capital account at the same time, and the customer business will benefit from a wider range of benefits.
According to the Business Development Measures, foreign exchange risk screening and identification are carried out based on the system, and the post-event monitoring is more accurate, so that customers are "not disturbed without violations". For high-quality customers, the pressure of retaining materials for future reference is greatly reduced, and transaction costs are saved.
Aspect 2: "Relieve pressure" for banks
Banks are on the front line of cross-border capital business, and their policy implementation directly determines whether the facilitation policy dividends can truly benefit business entities.
In recent years, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange has vigorously promoted the reform of cross-border ** and investment and financing facilitation through pilot projects and then promotion. A number of cross-border ** and investment and financing facilitation measures have been introduced one after another to further support high-quality opening-up.
However, banks' foreign exchange practices vary widely. Some banks do not have a good grasp of the boundaries of their business development, and there are situations such as "failure to conduct due diligence review" or "excessive review", and "will not handle or dare to do facilitation business", and there is still a "last mile" problem in the implementation of facilitation measures.
Many banks have expressed the hope that the specific standards for foreign exchange management will be further clarified. To this end, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange and the bank jointly comprehensively sorted out the relevant content of the bank's foreign exchange business, and formed a top-level design including system construction and system support.
Drawing on the empirical indicators of cross-border business risk identification, the Measures further tap the information resources of banks, model risk transaction reports, and promote banks to truly shift to a whole-process business development based on risk assessment, risk classification, and risk reporting, so as to enhance their ability to early identify, warn, expose and deal with cross-border capital flow risks.
By constructing a general framework for banks' foreign exchange business, we will further refine and clarify the standards for banks' business development before, during, and after the event, so as to facilitate banks to earnestly fulfill their audit obligations. Zhang Lin, general manager of the international business department of China CITIC Bank, believes that the reengineering of the bank's internal process of foreign exchange business can improve its own management efficiency, "the pilot branches have reported that the processing time has been generally shortened to half of the original, and the ability to obtain and retain customers has been further improved."
Another highlight of the measures is that it clarifies the relevant content of "due diligence exemption".
Wang Chunying introduced that the business development measures make it clear that if the bank can prove that it has taken foreign exchange business development measures diligently and responsibly, it will not pursue the relevant legal responsibility. This is to break the "consequentialism", dispel the concerns of banks, and better encourage banks to "be capable, willing to do, and dare to do", so that enterprises can really enjoy the dividends of cross-border business facilitation policies.
It is worth noting that the business development measures allow banks to have more room for product innovation within the framework of foreign exchange facilitation measures through customer classification management.
Through prior due diligence, the customer portrait is more comprehensive and three-dimensional, and the bank can provide customers with more distinctive and customized service solutions, and reallocate internal resources according to the risk level classification, so as to improve the efficiency of internal collaboration within the bank.
Aspect 3: Mature one starts another.
Although this reform is not only the whole-process transformation of commercial banks' foreign exchange business, but also a basic and long-term work to promote the transformation of foreign exchange management methods, Wang Chunying said that this reform respects the differences between banks in terms of business scale and model adjustment costs, and is voluntarily promoted by banks.
It is understood that banks may voluntarily choose to apply the business development measures to carry out their business. If the bank does not yet have the organizational structure and system control requirements stipulated in the Measures, it can carry out foreign exchange business in accordance with the original relevant foreign exchange management laws and regulations, and will not be affected.
If the bank is willing to adopt this method, the foreign exchange bureaus at all levels have professional counseling teams to personally guide the bank in the construction of system transformation and business process improvement, assist the bank in making relevant preparations, and reduce the cost of trial and error of the bank. Banks can only apply the Measures after meeting the prescribed conditions.