INTERNATIONAL BANKS ACTIVE in Hong Kong and China have been delighted with recent foreign exchange liberalization moves from the Chinese government – particularly those that had hoped for change and invested a lot in getting ready for it. "We’ve been predicting this for about four years and we’ve built a cash and trade system with renminbi [RMB] settlement capabilities that is now in every country in Asia," says Mike Rees, group executive director and chief executive of wholesale banking at Standard Chartered. "We’re very relieved something’s happened. We’d have looked a bit stupid otherwise."
Standard Chartered and others spent the money to get ready for these developments because of a deep belief at the highest level of these institutions that the changes, when they came, could be transformative. "The potential is going to be huge," says Rees, arguably the second...
