Bank of China Ningbo Branch： Improve the facilitation level of foreign exchange business and boost the stability and quality of foreign trade.
Recently, the People’s Bank of China and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange issued 23 policy measures to do a good job in epidemic prevention and control, financial services for economic and social development, and increase support for the real economy. At the same time, the Head Office of Bank of China has issued a number of measures to help market players overcome difficulties and support related enterprises to tide over difficulties and resume development.
Bank of China Ningbo Branch conscientiously implemented the work arrangements of the regulatory authorities and the head office, continued to do a good job in stabilizing foreign trade, provided efficient, diversified and appropriate foreign exchange facilitation services, helped foreign-related enterprises to cope with difficulties and overcome difficulties together, and achieved practical results in financial support for the real economy.
Implementing foreign exchange facilitation measures to help enterprises improve quality and efficiency
In recent years, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange has persisted in implementing the new development concept, intensified the "streamline administration, delegate power, strengthen regulation and improve services" reform, and constantly introduced measures to promote cross-border trade facilitation. By simplifying business processes and optimizing foreign exchange management methods, it has increased convenience and reduced costs for enterprises, and at the same time, it has given banks and foreign trade enterprises more autonomy, which has played a positive role in current financial support for epidemic prevention and control and "stabilizing foreign trade".
A company is a large foreign trade company in Ningbo. Due to the characteristics of the industry, its import payment business has the characteristics of small amount, many transactions and complicated documents, and it takes a lot of time to copy materials, match documents and verify banks every month. On the recommendation of Bank of China Ningbo Branch, the company participated in the pilot project of facilitating foreign exchange receipts and payments, thus optimizing the document review link and simplifying the business process, which not only saved a lot of paper documents copying costs, but also took only a few minutes to complete a single business. The company fully affirmed the effect of the facilitation pilot.
In recent years, a manufacturing enterprise in Ningbo tried to change its business model and set up a factory in Southeast Asia to assemble and manufacture products. The raw materials were provided by the domestic parent company or purchased by overseas factories, and the finished products were directly transported to the demanding countries. However, under the new business model, there are also some problems, such as mismatch between goods flow and capital flow, inconvenient provision of documents and so on. The promotion and implementation of the new offshore trade policy of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange has brought convenience to the business development of enterprises, effectively simplified the examination of transaction documents, optimized the business process, reduced the "sole cost" and financial cost of enterprises, and met the high-level convenience demands of market participants.
It is understood that Bank of China Ningbo Branch has earnestly implemented the requirements of foreign exchange facilitation reform, actively recommended high-quality enterprises to participate in the facilitation pilot, and strived to let more enterprises enjoy the policy dividend. By the end of May, the bank had handled a total of 20,990 trade facilitation pilot businesses, with a cumulative amount of US$ 6.708 billion.
Open the business "green channel" to support the special needs of enterprises
During the epidemic prevention and control period, Bank of China Ningbo Branch actively implemented the relevant requirements of the anti-epidemic work, adhered to the concept of financial services to the real economy, and took the protection of business continuity and sudden customer demand during the epidemic as the top priority, continuously improved the response speed of special circumstances, optimized and improved the emergency response mechanism, and ensured the uninterrupted financial services during the epidemic.
After the outbreak of the epidemic in April 2022, some overseas branches of many international express delivery companies suspended their international express delivery services to Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, which caused some import documents to be sent on time and delayed delivery. Many import enterprises have reported to Bank of China Ningbo Branch that they will not be able to pick up the goods if they don’t receive the documents, which will eventually lead to the long-term detention of the goods in Hong Kong and will affect the cooperative relationship with overseas exporters.
Bank of China Ningbo Branch immediately launched an emergency plan, negotiated with the Documentary Center of the Head Office about the unconventional presentation scheme in special period, opened a "green channel", and provided more than 10 enterprises with the schemes of forwarding documents, electronic trading platform presentation and E-MAIL presentation, thus ensuring the smooth development of their business.
Promoting exchange rate hedging service and guiding enterprises to be "risk neutral"
In order to boost the foreign-related economic development in Ningbo, Ningbo Branch of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, in conjunction with Ningbo Finance Bureau, Commerce Bureau and local financial supervision administration, launched the expansion action of "first-run households" in exchange rate hedging, and innovatively launched the "banking policy" model, aiming at helping small and micro enterprises to make good use of exchange rate hedging products and avoid market risks.
Bank of China Ningbo Branch cooperated with a guarantee company efficiently, giving full play to the cooperative advantages of "bank bearing the responsibility", deeply integrating "forward settlement and sale of foreign exchange" with "forward guarantee" of the guarantee company, forming a special service plan for inclusive finance, opening a "green channel" to speed up the examination and approval, creating a business model for foreign exchange hedging transactions for enterprises, facilitating small and micro enterprises to carry out exchange rate hedging business, reducing the cost of enterprise hedging and providing them with a stable operation in two-way exchange rate fluctuations. By the end of May, the bank had handled the "first account" business of exchange rate hedging for 134 enterprises, with a contracted amount of 516 million US dollars.
Bank of China Ningbo Branch actively promoted the concept of exchange rate risk neutrality, fully respected the wishes of enterprises on the basis of a large number of visits to enterprises and understanding their risk preferences, and introduced timely and targeted hedging products to enterprises in combination with market changes, which was widely recognized by enterprises, and the willingness of enterprises to maintain value increased, and the number of hedging products increased. At the same time, the bank actively promotes electronic trading platforms, guides customers to conduct business online, improves the level of business facilitation, and strives to provide better services to foreign-related enterprises and improve customer experience.
The relevant person in charge said that in the next step, Bank of China Ningbo Branch will continue to thoroughly implement the spirit of foreign exchange inclusive finance, deepen the concept of "finance for the people", give full play to the traditional advantages of foreign exchange business, improve supporting financial service measures, efficiently provide foreign-related financial services, accelerate the incremental expansion of foreign exchange business facilitation, help more enterprises to "adopt early adopters" policy dividends, boost the high-quality development of foreign trade enterprises, and contribute to "stabilizing foreign trade". (Chen Xiaoxiao)