Taiwan will ask for additional quotas to invest in the mainland when the mainland's securities regulator visits the island next month for the first time, a Taiwan official said Wednesday, as cross-Straits banking ties pick up pace.

The establishment of a clearing system for yuan transactions in Taiwan has raised hopes that Taiwan will play a key role in the internationalization of the yuan, boding well for higher quotas as well as for Taiwan to join Hong Kong in becoming an offshore yuan center.

The quotas for Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investment (RQFII) and QFII allow overseas investors to use offshore yuan to buy mainland securities.

Guo Shuqing, head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, is set to visit around February, with the higher quotas on the agenda for talks, said Lee Jih-chu, vice chairwoman of Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission.

"We're making an all-out effort to get as much QFII and RQFII quotas as possible," Lee told Reuters in an interview Wednesday.

"After all, it's very difficult to apply, as so many foreign investors are already waiting in line," she said.

"A global financial group has been awarded a QFII quota of only $1 billion," she said, without elaborating further.