Shanghai Gold Exchange Approves Membership of ANZ Bank
By Ginger Ding
26 Jun 2008 at 08:42 AM GMT-04:00
SHANGHAI (Interfax-China) — ANZ Bank is to become one of only four foreign banks permitted to trade gold on the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE), after becoming an SGE member, ANZ announced Tuesday. Alistair Bulloch, ANZ chief executive officer of North East Asia, said in the announcement that the SGE membership would help to position ANZ in both the commodity and financial markets of the Chinese economy.
“The gold trading approval strategically enhances ANZ’s client servicing capacity and core bank status. This approval is a further step in ANZ’s plan to become a leading foreign bank in China,” Bulloch said.
According to ANZ’s announcement, the SGE will only grant a total of five foreign banks membership at this stage. However, when reached by Interfax, Tong Gang, an official with SGE’s press department, said there is no limit to the number of foreign banks that can be granted membership to the SGE, and that China will gradually open up its gold market.
HSBC Bank (China) Co. Ltd. (HSBC), Standard Chartered Bank (China) Ltd. and the Bank of Nova Scotia (Guangzhou Branch) became SGE members in February. They were able to trade gold on the SGE from June 5, 2008.
Aside from the above three banks, preliminary approvals to apply for SGE membership were granted to UBS AG and Societe Generale by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) last June. However, Tong told Interfax that neither UBS AG nor Societe Generale have applied for SGE membership yet.
ANZ is the only Australasian-based bank with both local and foreign currency commercial banking capabilities in China. It has fully-licensed foreign bank branches in Shanghai and Beijing.
In addition to its own branches, ANZ has a 19.9% stake in the Shanghai Rural Commercial Bank and a 20% stake in the Bank of Tianjin.
The SGE is the sole spot gold trading bourse in China. The most-traded AuT+D contracts on the SGE closed at RMB 195.82 ($28.51) per gram Tuesday, RMB 3.68 ($0.54) lower than the previous trading day.
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