On 8 May 2014, Bank of China Limited, Luxembourg Branch, launched its first offshore-RMB “Schengen” bond,[1] for an amount of RMB 1.5 billion.
The transaction was done under the US$10 billion MTN programme of the Bank of China Group.
With the support from international and local institutional investors, the issuance was around 2 times oversubscribed.
It is a reference to the name of a small village in Luxembourg that borders France and Germany where the Schengen agreement permitting the free movement of movement of persons within the Schengen area was signed.
Additionally, the pronunciation of ‘Schengen’ in Chinese represents the meaning of “root here and develop here”.