joseph yam : a new euro clearing system for hong kong remarks by mr joseph yam, chief executive of the hong kong monetary authority, at the signing ceremony for the appointment of standard chartered bank as settlement institution for the euro clearing system in hong kong, hong kong, 3 july 2002. * * * we live in a financial world where boundaries and barriers are progressively collapsing, whether as the result of conscious policy decisions in favour of liberalisation or because of the new vistas opened up by the onward march of information technology. thus, restrictions on providing or using services across geographic or political borders are on the decline. particular transactional services, such as quoting, dealing, confirming, settling, delivering, paying and safe - keeping, are increasingly footloose, in the sense that many of them can be readily accessed from remote locations. moreover, the development of interfaces between systems in different parts of the world provides scope for continuous 24 - hour real - time trading. at the same time, the regulatory framework is tending towards standardisation around the world, thereby reducing the potential for regulatory arbitrage between jurisdictions. as a result of these various developments, the marketplace in which we can operate is potentially ever larger, but at the same time the potential number of competitors is ever growing. against this background, financial centres must be nimble, competitive, efficient and safe, and alert to the changing world, if they are to thrive. one of the essentials is that they must offer an effective and robust financial infrastructure. such is our aim in hong kong. but this does not mean throwing money into each and every idea which comes along - therea€™s no point in constructing highways if no - one wants to drive down them. there must be a reasonable business case. on the other hand, no venture no gain. the opening up of a footpath may lead to the emergence of heavy traffic. thus we have been selective in the initiatives which we support and, although not every project may have been an unqualified success, examples such as our hkd rtgs system which we pioneered in the mid - 90s ; the cmu which provides such an excellent settlement and custody service for debt securities and which is being linked up with a growing number of overseas counterparties ; and the relatively recent usd clearing system ; all of these present a strong track record. we are here today to mark another milestone in this infrastructural development - in the field of clearing and payments. our usd

norman t l chan : hong kong – an offshore renminbi business centre speeking points by mr norman t l chan, chief executive of the hong kong monetary authority, on the regulatory requirements for the adjustments to renminbi risk management limit and net open position, hong kong, 17 january 2012. * * * the development of hong kong as an offshore rmb business centre achieved encouraging results in the past year. trade settlement using rmb reached rmb2 trillion ; rmb deposits almost doubled ; and total issuance of dim sum bonds exceeded rmb100 billion. i am very confident that the trend of solid development will continue in 2012. with the continued growth in both turnover and depth of the offshore rmb ( cnh ) market in hong kong, the hong kong monetary authority ( hkma ) considers that conditions are now ripe to appropriately relax certain regulatory requirements on the rmb business of banks in hong kong. first, on the regulatory requirements of the rmb net open position, the hkma has decided to raise the limit for rmb net open position, from not exceeding 10 % to not exceeding 20 % of the bank ’ s total rmb assets or liabilities. second, currently the hkma requires each participating ai to maintain the sum of rmb cash or balances with the rmb clearing bank and the people ’ s bank of china, shenzhen branch, at no less than 25 % of its total rmb customer deposits ( referred as rmb risk management limit ). the hkma has now decided that participating ais can include two more types of rmb assets, namely “ rmb sovereign bonds issued in hong kong by the ministry of finance of china ” and “ rmb bond investment through the mainland interbank bond market ”, in the calculation of this limit. the above two relaxations take effect today. i believe they will help expand the scope of development for offshore rmb business in hong kong and provide banks with a greater flexibility in rmb asset management, which will be conducive to further development of the market. third, the hkma has imposed some restrictive arrangements on the inclusion of rmb assets as liquid assets in calculating the statutory liquidity ratio of ais. as the offshore rmb market in hong kong becomes more mature, i believe there is room for suitably relaxing these restrictions. since the adjustments to be made in the calculation are more complicated and technical, we shall announce the details later. bis central bankers ’ speeches