A new trade fund was launched Wednesday by HSBC Bank Malta enabling Maltese companies take their business to emerging markets by offering preferential rates on foreign exchange, including the Chinese currency RMB.
HSBC Bank Malta claims to be the only bank on the archipelago offering direct trade settlement in RMB.
The latest edition of RMB Tracker by Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) showed 2.07 percent of global payments in April 2015 were conducted in RMB, thus allowing the currency to maintain its fifth position in the ranking of world payment currencies, behind the USD, euro, GBP and JPY.
HSBC Bank Malta's Head of Global Banking and Markets James Woodeson emphasized that the growing influence of China and its currency "is a reality nowadays and this is reflected in HSBC Group's strategy of capturing growth opportunities in the Asian markets."
