As an important financial market infrastructure in my country, the RMB Cross-border Payment System (CIPS) has played an important role in promoting the two-way opening of the financial industry in recent years, enhancing the ability of the financial industry to serve the real economy, and assisting the internationalization of the RMB.
Data recently released on the website of the Cross-Border Interbank Payment and Clearing Co., Ltd. show that the average daily transaction size of CIPS in March was approximately 920.5 billion yuan, an increase of nearly 48% from 619.7 billion yuan in February, a record high in the past year; the number of transactions reached 35,740, a significant increase from 25,930 in February.
As for the significant increase in the average daily transaction size of CIPS in March from the previous month, some experts believe that since March, the RMB exchange rate has remained relatively stable. As a relatively stable settlement currency, the RMB, combined with the rising risk aversion sentiment, may support the rise in demand for CIPS to a certain extent.
In addition, the revised “RMB Cross-border Payment System Business Rules” were officially implemented on February 1 this year, further improving the convenience of CIPS.
In March, against the background of the strengthening of the U.S. dollar index and the general decline of non-U.S. currencies, the RMB exchange rate showed certain resilience.
Among them, the central parity rate of the RMB against the US dollar fluctuated within a narrow range, rising to 6.9194 at the end of March, with a cumulative increase of approximately 0.05% during the month.
Wind data shows that the offshore RMB exchange rate against the US dollar and the onshore RMB exchange rate against the US dollar fell by 0.39% and 0.76% respectively in March.
In addition, data from the China Foreign Exchange Trading Center showed that the three major RMB exchange rate indexes including CFETS (China Foreign Exchange Trading Center) rose across the board in March.
Some analysts said that the global foreign exchange market has fluctuated significantly, and the RMB exchange rate has remained stable and relatively strong, mainly due to my country’s current stable external economic and trade environment, continued high export growth, and improvement in domestic consumption and investment growth at the beginning of the year, which has provided strong support for the RMB exchange rate.
CIPS was launched in October 2015. There were 19 direct participants and 176 indirect participants launched simultaneously.
In recent years, the scale of CIPS participants has continued to expand.
Data from the website of the Cross-Border Interbank Payment Clearing Co., Ltd. show that as of now, there are 194 direct participants and 1,597 indirect participants in CIPS.
“The increase in CIPS transaction activity reflects the further strengthening of the payment function in the process of RMB internationalization.” Some experts said that when evaluating the degree of RMB internationalization at this point in time, it can be seen that RMB is relatively leading in the internationalization process in the field of payment. It is expected that the high-quality construction of the “Belt and Road” during the “15th Five-Year Plan” period may bring more scenarios and demands for RMB payment.
As CIPS continues to develop and improve, it will play a more important role in promoting the cross-border use of RMB and promoting the internationalization of RMB, and will also inject new vitality into the opening and development of my country’s financial market.
