A Policy Briefing on Cross-border Settlement of the China-SCO Local Economic and Trade Cooperation Demonstration Area (SCODA) was held in Qingdao on April 28. The Financial Supermarket of SCODA International Capital Port (hereinafter referred to as the Financial Supermarket) was officially launched, dedicated to building China’s first cross-border financial service system tailored for SCO member states and countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative.
Currently, enterprises conducting cross-border transactions with SCO member states face multiple pain points and bottlenecks including limited settlement currency, high financing thresholds, cumbersome trade procedures and inadequate risk prevention and control, which restrict the coordinated development of industrial and supply chains. To tackle these challenges, the Financial Supermarket integrates a full suite of financial products via product integration, covering 225 types of fully online financial services and supporting cross-border payment and settlement in more than 130 currencies. It fully covers core enterprise demands such as cross-border settlement, credit enhancement for financing and exchange rate risk hedging, enabling precise matching between financial services and corporate needs and helping enterprises cut cross-border transaction costs and lift capital turnover efficiency.
“Cross-border settlement and trade financing constitute the two core strengths of the Financial Supermarket. In its cross-border settlement module, we provide fully online cross-border settlement Virtual Account (VA) services. SMEs do not need to visit banks offline to open accounts; they only need to submit relevant materials on the Financial Supermarket platform, and account opening can be completed in as fast as 10 minutes,” introduced Tan Dexue, General Manager of Qingdao Huayan Digital Service Co., Ltd., the developer and operator of the Financial Supermarket. In terms of financing, cross-border trade with SCO member states is plagued by long collection period, foreign currency shortages and insufficient collateral, pushing up enterprises’ capital occupation costs. To address this, the Financial Supermarket has set up four service hubs in Shenzhen, Xi’an, Hong Kong and Shanghai, and built the SCO Financial Service Center for Russia at Almaty, Kazakhstan and the Moscow Central Market Trade Center in Russia. It cooperates with 24 banks from SCO member states to deliver localized financial services, forming an integrated service network featuring “Qingdao R&D, nationwide empowerment and overseas outreach”, which effectively opens up a two-way channel linking domestic and overseas financial services.
During its trial operation phase, the Financial Supermarket has delivered services including commercial paper and cross-border mortgage loans to leading industrial enterprises such as Haier and BYD. For instance, when BYD exported over 100 new energy vehicles to Almaty, Kazakhstan, it completed a cross-border mortgage loan business worth 20 million yuan via the Financial Supermarket.
Editor: Zhang Hang/ Wang Yulin
