Foreign news: New JP Morgan head of Hong Kong global investment banking, China opens card clearing m 03 June 2015 4:05PM Banking Day staff Foreign news, JP Morgan has appointed David Lau as head of global investment banking for Hong Kong, the Wall Street Journal reports. Lau, who retains his responsibilities as head of China corporate finance, replaces Catherine Leung, who also served as vice chairwoman of Asia investment banking. Lau worked on the initial public offerings of companies including Huatai Securities Co, Alibaba Group Holding and China Galaxy Securities. China is opening its payment card clearing market, a move that will end the monopoly held by China UnionPay, reports CCTV. Visa and MasterCard can now apply to the People's Bank of China for clearing licences. Payment card transactions stood at 42.38 trillion yuan (US$6.8 trillion) last year, up more than a third from 2013. Citigroup has proposed shutting down its California unit Banamex USA as part of discussions to settle probes related to Banamex USA's anti-money-laundering controls. Sources told the Wall Street Journal that regulators are not demanding the closure, but want Banamex USA to pay more than US$100 million to settle the allegations. A wind-down of the unit, which would include returning deposits to customers, could take a year or more. Banamex USA holds about US$1 billion in assets and employs about 300 people. BNP Paribas was reprimanded and fined HK$11 million by Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission for failing to report more than HK$6 billion of cross trades over a ten year period. Bloomberg reports the bank failed to report 4443 pairs of cross trades to the Hong Kong stock exchange from December 2002 to January 2013. BNP Paribas said in a statement it had strengthened internal controls so that "the issues noted by the commission cannot be repeated."