On November 27, 2015, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (Europe) S.A. (hereafter refers to as “ICBC (Europe)”) was granted 4 billion RMB investment quota in Luxembourg under the Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (hereafter referred to as “RQFII”）scheme by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.

This is the first time for Luxembourg financial institutions to obtain investment quotas from Chinese regulator since the RQFII scheme was extended to Luxembourg in April of this year. According to the information from Luxembourg for Finance, as of the end of 2014, RMB-denominated assets held in Luxembourg domiciled investment funds reached 296.3 billion RMB. Luxembourg is the second largest investment fund center in the world, and the awarding of RQFII quotas to Luxembourg is the milestone in facilitating global asset managers promoting RMB investment products, strengthening Luxembourg’s leading role of RMB investment fund business in Europe and further accelerating RMB internationalisation.

As the regional hub of ICBC group in Continental European countries, ICBC (Europe) is the major player of cross-border RMB business in the European market and the first EU-registered Chinese bank tapping European investment fund industry. ICBC (Europe) was granted the RQFII license by the China Securities Regulatory Commission on November 2, 2015. The investment quota granted to ICBC (Europe) will be used to launch a new sub-fund within its current UCITS SICAV which will mainly invests into Chinese onshore market. The new sub-fund will target both institutional and retail investors through ICBC’s network around world.