China's Monetary, RMB and Market Architecture Takes Shape: Financial Street Forum 2026: A progress report

Speeches by PBOC Governor Pan Gongsheng, NFRA head Ding Xiangqun, CSRC Chairman Wu Qing and PBOC Deputy Governor and SAFE Administrator Zhu Hexin at the 19 October Financial Street Forum provide a progress check against the 17 June Lujiazui Forum policy messages. The main progress is institutional. The PBOC is moving toward an overnight, price-based operating framework with DR001 as the operating anchor; changing the main operation from seven-day to overnight is a framework change, not a rate cut. RMB internationalisation is expanding from settlement into assets, collateral, hedging and liquidity, with eight offshore clearing banks allowed to trade for their own accounts onshore, wider FX business pilots for securities firms, repo support for foreign clearing banks, and improved Bond Connect and Swap Connect. The exchange-rate framework is unchanged — managed flexibility without a level target or competitive depreciation — but the near-term policy bias favours orderly RMB strength. Fin