Europe accounts for 47% of world payments in renminbi

By Raphael Michilis

24 April 2012 

Europe has overtaken Asia Pacific in the use of the Chinese renminbi for global payments in the first quarter of 2012, according to the report RMB Tracker by Swift, the payments and messaging platform.

Aside from China and Hong Kong, Europe is the biggest contributor to RMB offshore transactions, accounting for 47% of the payments in renminbi worldwide. Meanwhile, Asia-Pacific’s share in RMB payments declined from 59% to 41%

RMB represented 6.7% of all European payments with China and Hong Kong in Q1 2012, an adoption rate slightly lower than the 7.2% observed in transactions with Asia Pacific countries.

However, European contribution to RMB payments is still more significant than its counterpart’s, thanks to its bigger absolute payments value.  The contribution in absolute value to RMB payments from several European countries is also bigger than that of many Asia-Pacific countries.

UK-based financial institutions are leading the City of London to be the next major offshore RMB centre. It did 30% of RMB payments and 46% of RMB FX in Q4 2011, staying on par with Singapore in RMB payments and first in RMB FX for the same period.

Africa and the Middle East also showed strong adoption of the RMB, but the overall value is still really small, the Swift report shows.

Adoption in the US and Canada was relatively good for that period, but nearly zero in Latin America.

Renminbi in numbers:

• 8.6% was the average growth of global payments from February to March

• 13.2% was the RMB growth for the same period, with its share climbing from 0.33% to 0.35%

• 16th was the position occupied by the RMB in the currency global ranking, after leaving the position 17th in February