India’s largest public lender the State Bank of India’s (SBI) Shanghai Branch has become the first Indian Bank to be connected to China’s National Advance Payment System (CNAPS) and to operationalise it, said a senior bank official.
People’s Bank of China (PBOC) launched CNAPS in 2008. For all the payments cleared in mainland China, the CNAPS provides real-time settlement services. It also helps in all clearing banks in offshore yuan centers.
K Swaminathan, Chief Executive Officer, SBI, Shanghai said: “the SBI is the only Indian bank to have obtained the license to do business in local currency and also inducted to the CNAPS by the PBOC as on date.”
“The SBI has obtained the PBOC approval in December 2016 for implementation of the CNAPS and after successful installation of various hardware and software, testing it is now connected to the PBOC live system on July 8, 2019,” he said as reported by PTI.
After being a member of the CNAPS, SBI Shanghai can also offer a real-time transfer of local funds within China by routing them through the PBOC.
It eliminates the need to tie up and maintenance of accounts with multiple Banks for fund transfer, he said.
