China's Bank of Communications Authorized to Settle Futures Accounts

China's Bank of Communications has become one of the first Chinese banks officially assigned to provide futures traders with settlement services.

The Shanghai-based bank has signed agreements with China's three futures exchanges in Shanghai, Zhengzhou, and Dalian to help them handle trading settlements, according to Liu Yuchang, vice- governor of the bank.

Liu said that his bank has been engaged in futures settlement services for years and now handles more than 70 percent of the trading settlements in the three futures exchanges.

This year, the bank has stepped up efforts to improve internal management in order to provide safe and fast futures settlement services, Liu said.

Futures trading first started in China in the early 1990s and in 1998 the State Council issued a ruling on standardizing the futures market. All of the country's 14 pilot futures exchanges were subsequently merged into three. Last year, the three futures exchanges reported a combined trading volume of 3.68 trillion yuan (about 443 billion US dollars).

The Bank of Communications is one of China's five state-owned commercial banks and the country's first share-holding bank.