Bank of East Asia (BEA) has announced that a wholly owned subsidiary has opened four new outlets providing bank guarantees and letters of credit (L/Cs) as well as other trade finance and banking services on the Chinese mainland.

BEA China has recently opened the new sub-branches in the cities of Shantou and Foshan in Guangdong Province, Hefei in Anhui Province and Shanghai.

Bank services

According to a BEA statement, the sub-branches offer a range of trade finance and banking services in addition to L/Cs and bank guarantees.

These include Renminbi and foreign currency banking services, including account and deposit services, loans and advances, bill acceptance and discounting, remittance and settlement, foreign exchange, derivative products, debit cards and credit cards.

Preferential access

The two new outlets in Shantou and Foshan have been established under the liberalisation measures contained in the Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA).

CEPA is a free trade agreement under which qualifying products, companies and residents of Hong Kong enjoy preferential access to the mainland Chinese market.

Expanding network

The new outlets bring the total number BEA outlets on the mainland to ten, of which two are branches and eight are sub-branches.

The banks says it will continue to set up outlets in what it describes as strategic locations with the aim of providing customers with even greater access to its banking and financial services.

This article represents the views of the author and not necessarily those of the ICC or any of the other partners in DC-PRO.