Agricultural Bank of China, the only unlisted lender among the mainland's Big Four state-owned commercial banks, has appointed ABN Amro-Mellon as the global custodian for its offshore investments and for QDII products still being developed.
ABN Amro-Mellon, a joint venture between Dutch bank ABN Amro and US-based Mellon Financial, will provide global custody and securities lending services for Agricultural Bank's international assets.
The venture will also handle overseas accounting and investment mandates under the mainland's Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor scheme, ABN Amro-Mellon said yesterday.
Agricultural Bank received approval in December from the country's banking regulator to invest clients' money overseas under the QDII scheme. The bank said last month it was dealing with all the required issues including finding custodians for its QDII products.
According to the QDII scheme guidelines, mainland lenders or other institutions developing QDII products should pick one domestic bank as a master custodian and one overseas bank as a sub-custodian. The latter should be chosen by the domestic master custodian bank.
The sub-custodian is paid by the master custodian with part of the fees it receives from clients for its services.