China money market funds grow as foreign firms' "trapped cash" freed up

By Saikat Chatterjee

HONG KONG, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Rapid reforms by Beijing allowing foreign companies to move funds from their China operations across borders relatively freely is boosting treasurers' confidence in using the yuan as the preferred currency for doing business.

That increased confidence has also helped China's fledgling money market funds industry as companies look to invest their cash in investment vehicles after years of parking funds in bank deposits which offered them next to nothing in terms of yield.

For years, treasurers operating in China had to face the issue of "trapped cash": the inability to freely remit their funds to their regional treasury centres outside the mainland as the yuan was not freely convertible.

That has changed in less than three years with Beijing now allowing multinationals to transfer yuan out of China without seeking regulatory approval, a big departure from the past when authorities used to scrutinize every cross-border transaction.

Indeed, Beijing has gotten more confident about the success of these moves and earlier this month allowed foreign firms nationwide to move money from offshore centres back into China.

"It is a key goal of the Chinese reform agenda and one area which is moving most quickly," said Brett Krause, president of JP Morgan Chase Bank (China) Company Limited.

"It is a reflection of China's strong confidence in their currency and the importance placed on global trade."

Allowing greater freedom for global companies to move yuan in and out of China achieves two goals: a renewed push to redenominate China's trade with the world in renminbi, currently at a fifth of its total trade; and encouraging treasurers to buy more yuan-investment products.

"There are lots of benefits to using the renminbi in our inter-company invoicing in China as it creates a natural hedge and we save on transaction costs," said Robert Yenko, Singapore-based regional treasurer at giant chip-maker Intel (Swiss: INTC.SW - news) .

That is prompting them to flock to Chinese money market funds as an option to park their working capital. Such investments offer at least 2-3 percentage points more in returns than bank deposits, plus tax breaks and easier settlement rules.

Assets under management in more than 100 such funds in China have soared to nearly 900 billion yuan ($147 billion) at January 2014 from less than 200 billion yuan three years ago, according to data compiled by ratings agency Moody's Investors Services. ($1 = 6.1385 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Editing by Kim Coghill)