Yuan Offshore Trade Race Picks Up With Frankfurt Bid: Currencies

The race is on to corner the overseas trade in China’s yuan, with an organization that represents Frankfurt’s financial industry predicting the European Central Bank will get a swap deal valued at four times that obtained last week by the U.K.

The ECB, based in the German finance capital, may obtain a swap agreement with the People’s Bank of China valued as much as 800 billion yuan ($130 billion), according to lobby group Frankfurt Main Finance. A deal would give euro-area central banks access to yuan funds to backstop companies doing business in the world’s second-largest economy, and would dwarf the 200 billion-yuan agreement signed June 24 by the Bank of England.