In response to overseas media reports that the Bank of China has closed the account of North Korea's main foreign exchange bank, Shi Yinhong, an international affairs expert at Beijing's Renmin University tells Hong Kong's South China Morning Post that Beijing is losing patience with Pyongyang.

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With currency ETFs, investors can enjoy the benefits of the foreign exchange market without an actual forex account.

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In a little-noticed comment during the weekend's meetings, Yi Gang, a deputy governor of China's central bank and head of the country's foreign-exchange reserves, said that China aimed to bring its current-account surplus below 4% of GDP within 3-5 years.

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The picture is less clear for Asian countries, which, led by China and Japan, account for about half of the world's foreign-exchange reserves and sovereign-wealth assets.

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Bank of China is the country's biggest bank for foreign exchange transactions, so the account closure could hurt the North Korean institution.

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The Treasury can no longer use its foreign-exchange account to backstop money-market funds worrying, given the exposure of money-market funds to European banks.

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Last January, Yi Gang, the head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, stated that China would make the renminbi convertible on the capital account in five years.

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