EAST Shanghai's Weng Deng Road in Pudong has been earmarked to be the mainland's next Wall Street and is recruiting some of the world's biggest banks to help. To entice the banks to Pudong, Beijing is allowing a select group of overseas banks to trade in yuan in the district for the first time.
While some see the new banking experiment as a sign of greater access to the mainland's millions of potential customers with a penchant for saving, all agree there is a long wait ahead.
According to analysts, the People's Bank of China's (PBOC) choice of Pudong - up to an hour by taxi from downtown Shanghai - may rescue the millions of dollars Beijing has been pouring into the Pudong New Area Development Project.
Pudong's new high rises have been suffering a dangerously low vacancy rate. Hence, the requirement for participating banks to shift their headquarters to Pudong, under the PBOC's only one Shanghai branch rule.
So far Pudong is the only location in China where yuan currency licences are being granted. The applying bank's parent company must have at least US$20 billion in assets on hand. Once the bank's branch is ready to open for business, the PBOC then conducts its inspections, scrutinising records and staff before allowing the yuan trading.
Transactions are restricted to Sino-foreign joint ventures and foreign individuals living in Shanghai for more than a year.