It is revealed by the Hunan Branch of ICBC (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China) that ICBC will be the first bank in the province to launch the foreign exchange trading service for individual account. This trading service, similar to "paper gold" and "paper silver", is referred as "paper foreign exchange".
Customers of ICBC can take up foreign exchange trading through their e-banking (internet banking, mobile banking and telephone banking) where only the transaction amount is recorded instead of using real foreign currency.
Currently, there are five foreign currencies available for trading including Great British pound, Swiss franc, Canadian dollar, Australian dollar and Euro. Customer should buy foreign exchange account before he can sell any foreign exchange account with the transaction threshold of 10 units.
In addition, "T+0" transaction pattern is employed to individual customer with no limitation to daily transaction times, no handling charge and no taxation on profit. Trading hours start from 7 a.m. on Monday to 4 a.m. on Saturday without interruption.
Translator: Wang Bilian
Source: Hunan Official Web Portal