Yuan's share in SWIFT settlements reaches record high

The share of the Chinese yuan in international trade settlements through the SWIFT system reached a historic high of 4.72% at the end of April. This allowed the currency to enter the top three among the world currencies used for trade settlements. 

The dollar remained the main trading currency in April with a share of 83.95%. At the same time, the «american» is near multi-year lows: the share below 84% was recorded only twice before: in March 2023 (83.71%) and in December 2017 (83.52%).

In second place is the euro, whose share increased slightly in mid-spring – to 6.54% from 6.41% in March. The top three is rounded out by the yuan, whose share has increased by 0.22 percentage points over the month. The share of the Japanese yen, on the contrary, fell by 0.35 percentage points to 1.41%.

Other currencies occupy less than 1% in international trade settlements. The top 10 also includes Thai baht, Saudi Rial, Indonesian rupiah, UAE dirham, Vietnamese dong and pound sterling.

A few years ago, SWIFT was the main system for processing payments and almost all banking transactions in the world passed through it. However, after 2014, when Western countries for the first time threatened to disconnect Russia from the system, many countries began to think about creating alternative payment systems. In Russia, it has become a System for transmitting financial messages, in China – a system of cross-border interbank payments. India also has its own system for transfers.