Yuan displaces rand on global payments

One-hundred Yuan notes are seen in this picture illustration.

One-hundred Yuan notes are seen in this picture illustration.

Published Jan 28, 2013

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Johannesburg – The December 2012 data showed that the Chinese renminbi (RMB) or Chinese yuan (CNY) had moved up to 14th in terms of value of payments from 20th in January‚ while the rand had slipped to 16th from 15th over the same period‚ according to the Swift RMB Tracker.

Swift is the international financial messaging provider for more than 10‚000 banking organisations‚ securities institutions and corporate customers in 212 countries and territories.

The terms yuan and renminbi are used interchangeably like sterling and pound.

Swift said the RMB Tracker allowed analysts to track the progress of the CNY on its way towards becoming an international currency.

The euro (39.76%)‚ US dollar (33.34%)‚ sterling (8.68%) and yen (2.45%) were the top currencies used for payments in December last year.

This is similar to the weights in the South African Reserve Bank’s trade weighted rand of 34.82% for the euro‚ 14.88% for the US dollar‚ 12.49% for the Chinese yuan‚ 10.71% for sterling and 10.12% for the yen.

The rand’s usage as a payments currency slipped to 0.40% in December from 0.48% in January last year‚ while the yuan more than doubled its share from 0.25% to 0.57% over the same period.

The UK remained the top non-Chinese country using the RMB for the seventh consecutive month in December accounting for 28.3% of the renminbi’s usage compared with 23.7% in January last year. It had displaced Singapore in June.

Singapore’s share declined from 32.7% to 22.7% over the same period. - I-Net Bridge

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