Global Asset Allocation Expands: New Batch of QDII Quotas Set to Open

At the 2026 Lujiazui Forum, Zhu Hexin, Administrator of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), announced that a "package" of incremental policies will be introduced, with the issuance of a new batch of Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) quotas becoming a market focal point.

For domestic investors, the expansion of QDII quotas means that compliant channels for overseas investment are further broadened. Given the high correlation among A-shares, bonds, and real estate in China's asset structure, the value of cross-border diversified allocation has become increasingly prominent.

For institutions, industry insiders noted that this round of quota expansion will push more firms to strengthen their overseas investment research capabilities. The crude model of simply "selling quotas" is no longer sustainable; product screening ability, risk pricing capability, and investor education standards will become the key benchmarks distinguishing the best from the rest.

Why Expand QDII Quotas Now?

Zhao Qingming, Vice President of the Hui Guan Information Technology Research Institute, believes the expansion is driven by two considerations: first, China's foreign exchange reserves have grown steadily since 2025, currently reaching USD 3.4 trillion, providing a solid foundation for quota expansion; second, domestic residents' demand for global asset allocation continues to rise, and with global equity markets performing well in 2026, there is clear incremental demand for QDII quotas from the perspective of diversified asset allocation and return generation.

Nie Junfeng, Chairman of Jinghua Aristocratic Family Office and special researcher at the Strategic Research Institute of Peking University, noted that twenty years ago, the PBOC and SAFE proposed "storing foreign exchange among the people" to divert the pressure of the central bank's foreign exchange holdings. Today, the policy focus has shifted to facilitating the two-way circulation of domestic and foreign capital. QDII serves as the "proper door" for residents' cross-border investment. This quota expansion, combined with FDI, ODI, and foreign debt exchange facilitation, marks the transition of high-level financial opening from single-point breakthroughs to systemic integration.

In Nie's view, this expansion provides the general public and high-net-worth individuals with compliant global asset allocation tools, effectively smoothing single-market volatility and optimizing household financial asset structures. It also helps the state improve cross-border macro-financial regulation, channel rational overseas investment demand into a standardized regulatory framework, eliminate disorderly grey-market currency exchanges, stabilize foreign exchange market order, and safeguard the bottom line of financial security. Furthermore, the expansion empowers industry and capital market development, helping domestic asset management institutions enhance overseas investment research systems, upgrade global service capabilities, and support RMB internationalization by enriching cross-border investment and financing scenarios, sending a stable signal of long-term opening up.

Facing the upcoming quota release, multiple banks and asset management institutions have already laid out plans ahead of time. DBS China, for instance, has positioned QDII business as a strategic priority. After more than a decade of continuous investment, the bank has built a product line covering more than ten overseas markets, including offshore notes, equity funds, bond funds, balanced funds, industry funds, and single-country fund strategies, with 81 QDII products available as of the end of June 2026. Its differentiated competitive strategy is particularly notable — exclusively introducing BNY Mellon and First Source and other internationally renowned fund companies, making it the sole channel for domestic investors to subscribe to QDII products from these institutions.