Recently, China Foreign Exchange Trading System & National Interbank Funding Center (CFETS) has officially launched the direct trading of RMB against THB. It is reported that Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has been approved to serve as the market maker for the first batch of direct trading of RMB against THB. On the first day of direct trading, it provided the RMB/THB direct quotation and trading services to nearly 300 member institutions, successfully concluding the first batch of direct trading of RMB against THB.

As RMB is an important currency along the “Belt and Road”, the introduction of RMB/THB direct trading by CFETS is one of the significant moves to promote the internationalization of RMB, which will contribute to the bilateral trade and investment between China and Thailand, and facilitate the use of RMB and THB in the settlement of trade and investment, thus meeting the needs of economic entities to reduce foreign exchange transaction costs. The direct trading market maker system is applied in the interbank foreign exchange market. As a market maker, ICBC can provide liquidity to the market by continuously offering quotations for buyers and sellers.

According to relevant officers of ICBC, as one of the largest market makers in the domestic interbank foreign exchange market, ICBC’s counterparties cover all types of market members such as banking institutions, financial companies, securities companies, corporate customers and overseas sovereign institutions. Among the market-making institutions in the interbank foreign exchange market, ICBC is the first to obtain the market maker qualifications for direct trading of all currencies. In recent years, it has made great efforts to develop foreign exchange market-making transactions according to customer needs. Currently, ICBC can offer quotations for 22 direct trading currencies such as EUR, JPY and GBP, and is one of the two market makers for all currencies in the interbank foreign exchange market.