On November 14, China Foreign Exchange Trade System & National Interbank Funding Center (CFETS) officially released direct listed RMB trading against CAD. As one of the first market makers for direct RMB trading against CAD, ICBC completed the first spot RMB transaction against CAD in the interbank market upon the intraday market opening.

An official with ICBC said that RMB against CAD central parity rate was previously based on intraday RMB central parity rate against USD and USD cross-rate against CAD. After the launch of direct RMB trading against CAD, it will be based on market maker quotation of direct trading, which means prior to interbank foreign exchange market opening, CFETS inquiries market maker quotations of direct RMB trading against CAD from the interbank foreign exchange market and averages the quotations as central parity rate of RMB against CAD on a daily basis. Meanwhile, direct trading market makers continuously provide two-way quotations of buyers and sellers of direct RMB trading against CAD during the trading period, so as to inject liquidity to the market.

ICBC is one of the first commercial banks that are qualified as market makers of direct RMB trading against CAD. ICBC now has market maker qualifications for all direct trading currencies in the interbank foreign exchange market with ability to provide quotations of 15 direct trading currencies (including USD, euro, yen, pound, AUD, NZD, SGD, SF, rouble, ringgit, ZAR, KRW, AED, SAR and CAD). ICBC has the most complete market making currencies in the interbank foreign exchange market.

On November 11, CFETS announced that to promote Sino-Canada bilateral trade and investment, facilitate the use of RMB and CAD in trade and investment settlement and meet demands of economic entities for lower foreign exchange cost, with the authorization of the People’s Bank of China, the interbank foreign exchange market will improve the methods of RMB trading against CAD and develop direct RMB trading against CAD as of November 14, 2016.