Yuan Overtakes Ruble as World Payments Currency: SWIFT
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For the first time, China’s yuan has overtaken the Russian ruble for transactions in the global payment system, according to Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, a financial messaging platform.
The use of the yuan increased 24 percent in January from December and 171 percent from a year ago, while that of the ruble declined 5.4 percent on the month, the Belgium-based SWIFT said in a report today. The Chinese currency accounted for an all-time high of 0.63 percent of the global payments, making it the 13th most-used currency, compared with 0.56 percent for the ruble, now the 15th most-used. The euro leads the list, followed by the U.S. dollar and British pound.