Citibank Korea Offers CNY Deposit with Lower Fees

SEOUL--(Korea Newswire)--Citibank Korea Inc. (CEO Ha Yung-Ku, www.citibank.co.kr) offers CNY Deposit with free debit and credit feature starting from November 21.

Most local banks selling CNY deposit allow deposit with CNY cash only. If a customer with KRW cash wants to buy CNY deposit, she/he will first have to convert KRW cash to CNY cash at cash transaction exchange rates and then put the CNY cash to CNY deposit. In contrast, Citibank’s CNY deposit applies a special rate to such conversion, about half the cash transaction exchange rates, allowing customers to buy CNY deposit at much lower conversion fees than its local competitors.

In fact, many local banks apply fees of 6-10% for opening CNY deposit account, whereas Citibank applies only 3%; provided that additional fees will be charged upon withdrawing CNY cash from CNY deposit account which KRW cash, converted to CNY, was placed into.

If a customer wants to put KRW 1million into CNY deposit account (as of November 17), a local bank would apply cash offer rate at KRW 190.72 per 1yuan and convert the KRW 1million to 5,243yuan in total. If that customer goes to Citibank, however, she/he can place 5,446yuan in total into CNY deposit account at a rate of KRW183.59 per 1yuan. To sum up, Citibank gives 203yuan more.

As such, the new product is expected to be useful for customers who need to convert their KRW cash to CNY before leaving for China for leisure/business trip and studying.
There is no eligibility restriction for the account opening and the product is available for both corporate and individual customers. The interest rate is 0.1% per annum. The total portfolio of the product will be capped at USD 20million. If the ceiling is met, new opening of the account or additional crediting to the account may be restricted.

“There’re high demands for CNY deposit in Korea as the status of CNY has been escalated in part because the Chinese government is trying to make Chinese Yuan an international settlement currency. Still, customers have to pay too much fees for CNY deposit. We are offering this CNY deposit with much less fee burden and expecting strong interest from our customers,” said Park Byung-Tak, head of Retail Banking Product Division at Citibank Korea.

Website: http://www.citibank.co.kr

This is a news release distributed by Korea Newswire on behalf of this company.