The Bank of China’s Hong Kong subsidiary (BOCHK), the official clearing bank of the yuan (or RMB as the Chinese currency is also known as) in Hong Kong, has announced it is set to extend its yuan clearing service hours.

The bank says the move is designed to provide more comprehensive cross-regional clearing services to overseas participating banks and clearing banks in other regions. As the Chinese economy continues to dominate world trade flows, the importance of offering services related to the yuan keeps on expanding. An increasing number of Asian and European banks are now offering offshore clearing services for importers and exporters using the Chinese currency.

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From October 2014, the BOCHK clearing platform will offer services with the longest operating hours globally, becoming the world’s first clearing system to cover time zones in Europe, America and Asia. The new service runs 20.5 hours per day, from Monday to Friday, 8:30 am to 5 am of the next day according to Hong Kong time, extending yuan clearing services to cover the European and American trading hours with same-day value and supported by BOCHK’s 24-hour help desk services.

“BOCHK’s RMB clearing service hours will cover the trading periods of major countries and regions around the world, which will further facilitate the usage of RMB globally,” says Yang Ruhai, Head of RMB Business of BOCHK. “As the sole Clearing Bank of RMB business in Hong Kong BOCHK is committed to promoting and strengthening Hong Kong’s position as the premium offshore RMB centre. It will proactively enrich its RMB clearing products and services, with the objective to provide the most efficient, convenient and comprehensive RMB clearing services to participating institutions around the world,” Ruhai added.