The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has agreed to a deal with the Reserve Bank of Australia that will see Sydney, Australia’s largest city, become the latest hub for trading in the Chinese currency. The two central banks signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU), agreeing to extend the Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (RQFII) program to Australia with an initial investment quota of CNY50 billion. It is expected that a Sydney clearing bank for yuan will be appointed soon. Starting in June this year, the PBOC designated yuan clearing banks in London, Frankfurt, Seoul, Paris, Luxembourg, Doha and Toronto, while China is strengthening efforts to promote the use of the yuan in international trade. Statistics from the PBOC show that cross-border yuan settlement exceeded CNY4.8 trillion in the first three quarters of 2014, up from CNY3.58 billion in 2009. Song Ke, Research Fellow at the International Monetary Institute at Renmin University of China, said the Chinese government has accelerated the globalization of the yuan by pushing it forward around the world simultaneously, whereas the globalization process was initially carried out in neighboring countries and certain regions. He said the next crucial step for yuan internationalization is capital account liberalization. Renminbi business in Australia is quite small. The best estimate suggests that only 1% or 2% of overall Australian trade might be conducted in renminbi, said Paul Bloxham, Chief Economist for Australia and New Zealand at HSBC Bank Australia, in September. “The reason why it is still a fairly small proportion of Australia’s overall trade is because most of what we exported is commodities. Most of those commodities are still priced in global markets in U.S. dollar terms,” he said. UnionPay International, Bank of China (BOC) and Australia Post also signed an agreement in Canberra to jointly issue AusPost UnionPay dual currency cards, the China Daily reports. The ability to exchange Australian dollars directly into yuan, rather than first converting them into U.S. dollars, will save companies as much as 7%, according to HSBC.