Yuan climbs in currency use

China's Yuansurpassed the Swiss franc to becomethe seventh most used world paymentscurrency in January, global transactionservices organization SWIFT said onThursday.

Yuanpaymentsincreased by 30.6 percent while the growth for all payment currencieswas 4.8percent in January, SWIFT said.With a marketshare of 1.39 percent, theYuan remained one of the top 10 most-used currenciesfor payments worldwide forthe third consecutive month. It ranked eighth inDecember.

However,yuanpayments were still heavily concentrated in Hong Kong, which had a marketshareof 73 percent, followed by the UK,Singapore, Taiwan, the United States, Franceand Australia.

"Lookingatthe first month of 2014, which was the highest payments value recordedforyuan so far, it is clear that the yuan is on its way to remaininga top 10currency for global payments," Michael Moon, SWIFT's Asia Pacificdirectorof payments markets, said in a statement.

China isstepping up efforts to make its currencyan international one by acceleratingreforms in domestic markets as well asintroducing pilot programs to allowfreer yuan movements cross borders.

Itclarifieddetails for conducting cross-border yuan transactions in the Shanghaifree trade zone last week,officially kicking off yuan business in the pilotzone.

Over the lastthreeyears, the yuan has overtaken 22 currencies, most recently the Singaporedollar,Hong Kong dollar, and now the Swiss Franc.

The"redback"is now only ranked behind the US dollar, euro, sterling,yen, Canadian dollarand Australian dollar, according to SWIFT.

As arelativelylow-risk, high-yield currency that has gained over 35 percent againstthedollar since it was revaluated in 2005, the yuan also has become agrowingfavorite among international investors, though China's central bank in recentweekshas encouraged a drop in theexchange rate to stampout speculative capitalinflows.  

FromChina Daily 2014-02-28