According to a press conference held by the Guangdong Branch of the People's Bank of China on the 23rd regarding the 2025 Guangdong Provincial Financial Operation Situation, Guangdong's total cross-border receipts and payments reached US$2.5 trillion in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 7.2%, with net inflows of US$289.3 billion, a year-on-year increase of 23.4%.
In recent years, the internationalization of the RMB has steadily progressed. Statistics show that in 2025, Guangdong's cross-border RMB settlement scale increased by 21.5% year-on-year, accounting for over 50% of total cross-border receipts and payments in both local and foreign currencies, setting new historical records in both volume and proportion. Among them, Shenzhen's total cross-border RMB receipts and payments reached RMB 5.83 trillion, with the RMB continuing to maintain its position as the largest cross-border settlement currency between Shenzhen and Hong Kong.
Market entities' motivation and initiative to use RMB for cross-border settlement are constantly increasing. In 2025, Guangdong's cross-border e-commerce and other "new foreign trade formats" handled over RMB 800 billion in settlements, accounting for over 90% of the total cross-border settlement volume in both local and foreign currencies. The Guangdong Branch of the People's Bank of China saw a significant increase in RMB settlement volume with countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative and the ASEAN region, with the regional share rising to 36.9%.
In 2025, cooperation among banks in Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao deepened, with 10 mainland banks already conducting one-to-many business connections with banks in Hong Kong and Macao. Simultaneously, cooperating banks in the three regions responded quickly to investor demands and actively optimized cross-border business development methods. By the end of 2025, 70 banks, 28 securities companies, and 178,000 individuals from Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao participated in the "Cross-border Wealth Management Connect" pilot program, involving RMB 131.3 billion in cross-border RMB fund transfers.
In 2025, the Guangdong Free Trade Zone added Shanghai Pudong Development Bank and China Merchants Bank to its Free Trade (FT) account system, and the first Macao-funded bank in the Hengqin Shenzhen Cooperation Zone—Macau International Bank—launched a multi-functional Free Trade (EF) account. By the end of 2025, the cumulative number of accounts opened in the Free Trade account system reached 12,800, with the number of multi-functional Free Trade accounts increasing 2.2 times compared to the beginning of the year. (End)
