CCB custody business: making steady progress

China Construction Bank offers intelligent, innovative and dutiful support for custody customers and the healthy development of national financial markets.
By China Construction Bank

Custody, as a supervisory and check-and-balance mechanism, was created to protect the rights and interests of investors, effectively address the problem of information asymmetry, and ensure the safety of assets. For more than two decades, CCB has consistently attached great importance to the development of its custody business, which contributes to its outstanding results and safeguarding of the healthy development of the industry. Today, assets under its custody have exceeded 19 trillion yuan, making CCB a mainstay in the sector.

As one of the longest serving domestic custodian banks in China with the most comprehensive licensed functions, the largest scale of custody assets and the best customer services, CCB has accumulated a wealth of custodian experience by continuously enriching its product lines to meet all kinds of demands and launch innovative businesses. More than 20 categories of custody product have been developed, including exchange market and inter-bank market, all developed markets and some emerging markets around the world.

At the same time CCB puts a high value on digitalisation, introducing its CCB Smart Custody brand in 2020 – a digital platform with smart management, smart operations, smart risk control and smart data sharing at its core. In addition, CCB Smart Custody has launched one-stop services, enabling customers to easily and conveniently access CCB Group’s various high-quality products and services on a single platform, hence fully realising connectivity of customers, products and channels.

 

Highlights of CCB 2022

  1. One of the first custodian banks to facilitate GDRs issuance under China-Switzerland Stock Connect

Four A-share listed companies issued the first batch of global depository receipts (GDR) on the Swiss Exchange (SIX) on July 28th, which opens a significant new chapter in the connectivity of capital market between China and Switzerland. As the custodian bank of underlying corporate shares, CCB has successfully helped two of them, GEM, Ltd. and Gotion High-tech Ltd, to issue $381 million and $685 million worth of GDRs on the Swiss Exchange respectively. So far, CCB is the only bank able to provide custody services for both GDR depository banks and cross-border conversion brokers.

  1. Succeeded to keep ahead of the curve in terms of cross-border custody businesses among Chinese peers

By now, CCB has ranked first on the basis of Qualified Foreign Investor’s (QFI) assets under custody (AUC) among all Chinese peers for six consecutive years. As of the end of the third quarter, CCB’s newly increased QFI clients account for almost 50% of all Chinese competitors for this year, which further widens its leading advantage. As one of the first custodians to provide QFI services in 2003, CCB has earned rich experience and a great reputation among global custodians and foreign investors. It now counts over 160 global investor clients spread across 22 countries and regions and four continents.

  1. Advanced win-win cooperation of China and Kazakhstan’s capital market

CCB signed a custody agreement with Freedom Finance Global in August, a company incorporated in Kazakhstan, and successfully helped them get QFI approval by CSRC. This company became the first financial institution from Central Asia to obtain a QFI license, representing a breakthrough for the financial cooperation of the two countries and an exemplary role in promoting more financial institutions from Central Asia to access China’s capital market.

  1. International awards granted by authoritative financial media

This year marked the third consecutive year that CCB’s custody businesses won three international awards, including ‘Best Sub-custodian Bank in China’ by Global Finance, ‘Best Mega Custodian Bank in China’ by The Asian Banker, and ‘Best in Asset Servicing, China-Offshore-Best Custodian, QFI, Highly Commended’ by The Assets. This serves to highlight CCB’s outstanding ability and wealth of experience in the custodian field and is how CCB earned its reputation among global clients.

Looking to the future, CCB will continue to be faithful to its customers and diligent in its duties, supporting and protecting the healthy development of capital markets and safeguarding China’s financial market development by providing intelligent custody services for all.

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