UAE remains a world leader in yuan payments

|By Arabian Post Staff|The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has witnessed a 210.8% growth in the use of Chinese currency for payments in the last two years, data released by SWIFT has shown. More than 80% of the direct payments made between the UAE and China and Hong Kong in August 2016 were in CNY, representing one of the highest increases worldwide.
Data also shows that the EMEA region is ranked as number two in RMB adoption after Asia-Pacific. The RMB has retained its position as the number five world payments currency, representing 1.86% of global payments by value.
France leads Eurozone countries in RMB payments by value, despite flat growth over the past three years. Close to 50% of France’s direct payments with China/Hong Kong were denominated in CNY in August 2016.
The RMB is ranked number three in Switzerland for direct payments with China/Hong Kong after HKD and CHF. There has been 43.5% growth in RMB payments by value compared to November 2015, when the clearing centre was established. The euro continues to dominate the corridor for payments between Germany and China/Hong Kong with a share of 80.1%.
According to Alain Raes, Chief Executive, Asia Pacific & EMEA at SWIFT, the UAE continues to show significant growth, with an impressive 44.6% increase in payments value since August 2015. The growth is expected to continue in the wake of the UAE signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in December 2015 for the set-up of an additional clearing centre in the Middle East, he pointed out.
This will enable even more corporates operating in the region to access RMB products, open RMB accounts and use the currency to make payments to both onshore and offshore counterparts, he pointed out.
The UK remains the dominant offshore RMB clearing centre after Hong Kong, totalling 67.3% of all RMB direct payments made between Europe and China/Hong Kong in August 2016.
On 21 September 2016, the People’s Bank of China appointed Bank of China as the first yuan clearing bank in the United States. SWIFT’s August 2016 data shows that only 2.8% of all payments by value between US and China/Hong Kong are done in RMB while Europe, for example, reached 30.6%. The appointment of this new clearing centre will most probably strengthen its position on the RMB.