INDUSTRIAL and Commercial Bank of China Ltd. (ICBC), China’s largest bank by market capitalization, plans to expand in emerging markets and wants to be the authorized bank for clearing yuan trades in more countries, it said Tuesday.

    With global use of yuan exploding in trade and investment in recent years, ICBC hopes to be the bank that clears yuan trades in the Americas, said Wu Bin, general manager at ICBC’s international banking department.

    “The overseas renminbi business cannot be overlooked,” Wu said. “We will try to be selected as the yuan clearing bank in more countries.”

    Already the authorized bank for clearing yuan trades in Luxembourg and Singapore, ICBC plans to set up new branches in about another 10 countries in regions including North Africa, Southeast Asia and Central and East Europe, Wu said.

    Underscoring the rising importance of the yuan, business related to the currency accounted for more than a fifth of ICBC’s overseas profits so far this year, Wu said.

    In the first nine months of this year, ICBC’s overseas units saw profits surge by nearly 50 percent compared with the same period in 2013.

    Driven by China’s ambitions to grow the yuan into a global currency, worldwide usage of the yuan has spiked in recent years. (SD-Agencies)