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BEIJING - Three local Chinese commercial banks joined a global payments innovation initiative Friday, bringing the number of Chinese banks involved to 16, the most in the world.

The three banks are Yinzhou Bank and Bank of Ningbo in East China's Zhejiang province, and the Bank of Jiangsu.

The initiative was launched by SWIFT, a global member-owned cooperative that provides financial messaging services, to offer faster, more transparent and traceable cross-border payments.

"All the three banks are important regional commercial banks in China. The expanding presence of Chinese banks taking part will facilitate Chinese companies to 'go global' and in Belt and Road building," said Daphne Huang, head of SWIFT in China.

Previously, 13 Chinese banks, including Bank of China and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, had already joined the initiative, which together represent an estimated 80 percent of Chinese cross-border payments.

Over 110 banks worldwide, including almost all Belt and Road countries, have joined the initiative. More than 20 global transaction banks have begun using or implementing the SWIFT global payments service, with another 50 in the pipeline. Hundreds of thousands of payments have already been sent across more than 85 country corridors.