The State Administration of Foreign Exchange ("SAFE") has recently released the Administrative Provisions on the Centralized Operation of Cross-border Funds of Multinational Companies (the "Provisions") which have gone into effect immediately from the date of issuance.
The Provisions are mainly intended for: 1. streamlining administration and delegating power; 2. augmenting benefits brought by new policies; 3. adjusting and optimizing account functions; 4. lifting the previous limit that there should be at most three partner banks, and removing the restriction that an enterprises shall "clearly specify how the foreign debts and the centralized quotas of overseas loans are distributed among banks where it has opened accounts, before undergoing the record-filing process"; 5. substituting the timely collection of relevant data by electronic means for the previous manual reporting; and 6. intensifying the in-process and ex-post regulation. According to the Provisions, administration of the registration of foreign debts and overseas loans is streamlined by operating the "one-time registration" policy for foreign debts and overseas loans under the centralized operation of cross-border funds. Meanwhile, after completing the record-filing process, a multinational corporation is allowed to be directly engaged in the pilot reform for the facilitation of foreign exchange settlement and payment of income derived from capital projects. A multinational company may handle various business in relation to the centralized operation of cross-border funds, mainly through its founder's main account for domestic funds; such main account is a multi-currency (RMB applicable) account, and there are no limits on the types of applicable currency or on how many such accounts could be opened.