Swift's RMB Tracker shows that the Chinese currency now accounts for more than 30% of payments between South Africa and Greater China.
Brussels, 29 July 2015 – Recent Swift data shows that the number of South Africa’s Renminbi (RMB) payments increased by 33% over the last 12 months and by 191% over the last two years. In June 2015, 31.3% of direct payments value between South Africa and China/Hong Kong were in RMB versus 10.8% in June 2014 and only 4.6% in June 2013.
In addition to direct flows between South Africa and Greater China, Swift data shows that nearly 70% of the number of payments between the latter is still intermediated by the United States, mainly in USD.
“The rise of RMB usage in South Africa is another good indicator of the cross border use of the currency”, says Hugo Smit, Head of Africa South, Swift. “Much of this growth has to do with the strengthened bi-lateral relations between South Africa and China, which were renewed at the end of 2014 to include trade co-operation and sustainable investment opportunities between the two countries. As a result of this effort, RMB usage in South Africa should continue to grow at a good rate.”
In June 2015, the RMB held its position as the fifth most active currency for global payments in value and accounted for 2.09% of global payments, a slight decrease from 2.18% in May 2015. Overall, RMB payments increased in value by 9.26% in June 2015, whilst growth for all payments currencies was at 14.46%.
About Swift and RMB Internationalisation
Since 2010, Swift has actively supported its customers and the financial industry regarding RMB internationalisation through various publications and reports. Through its Business Intelligence Solutions team, Swift publishes key adoption statistics in the RMB Tracker, insights on the implications of RMB internationalisation, perspectives on RMB clearing and offshore clearing guidelines, supports bank's commercial RMB product launches and provides in-depth analysis and business intelligence, as well as engaging with offshore clearing centres and the Chinese financial community to support the further internationalisation of the RMB.
The Swift network fully supports global RMB transactions, and its messaging services enable Chinese character transportation via Chinese Commercial Code (CCC) in FIN or via Chinese characters in MX (ISO 20022 messages). It offers a suite of dedicated RMB business intelligence products and services to support financial institutions and corporates. In addition, Swift collaborates with the community to publish the Offshore and Cross-Border RMB Best Practice Guidelines, which facilitate standardised RMB back office operations.
Please click here for more information about RMB Internationalisation or join our new ‘Business Intelligence Transaction Banking' LinkedIn group.
About Swift
Swift is a member-owned cooperative that provides the communications platform, products and services to connect more than 10,800 banking organisations, securities institutions and corporate customers in over 200 countries and territories. Swift enables its users to exchange automated, standardised financial information securely and reliably, thereby lowering costs, reducing operational risk and eliminating operational inefficiencies. Swift also brings the financial community together to work collaboratively to shape market practice, define standards and debate issues of mutual interest.
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