The report found that, of the 158 countries, an average of 4% of those payments were valued in RMB. However, if RMB payments made by the US into China and Hong Kong are excluded, the average rises to 10%, says Swift. The US made 0.3% of all the RMB payments into China and Hong in July, says the company.
The strongest performers in making RMB payments into China and Hong Kong were the Gulf countries, Singapore and the UK. Canada and Germany also showed good take-up of RMB in use for payments into the regions last month.
“The US, Japan and Australia have low RMB-payments volumes [into China and Hong Kong] and thus present good opportunity for financial institutions to focus their RMB business development,” says Swift.
| Country usage of RMB for payments into China/Hong Kong |
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| Source: SWIFT |
Overall, the RMB moved up one place to 15th in July as the world’s most-used payments currency, capturing 0.45% of global market share and overtaking the South African rand at 0.44%. Comparatively, in June, RMB held 0.43% of the world’s currency market share. The Danish krone remains in 14th place as the world’s most-used currency, with 0.47% of the global market share.
In June, Swift reported that the value of payments in offshore RMB grew by 17 times during the previous 22 months, jumping from 35th most-used payment currency in the world to 16th place, emphasizing the increasing internationalization of RMB as a payment vehicle. [link]