Taiwan now the world's fourth largest RMB offshore centre, beating US and Australia

RMB payments surged 120% over the last six months.

SWIFT’s latest RMB Tracker reveals that Taiwan has moved up three positions to #4 (out of 136 countries exchanging RMB payments) following a 120% increase of its RMB payments over six months, overtaking the United States and Australia.

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Excluding Hong Kong and China, Taiwan is now trailing behind France (#3), but remains a long distance away from Singapore (#2) and the United Kingdom (#1). Nearly 44% of all payments made between Taiwan and China/Hong Kong are now exchanged in RMB.

Six months ago, SWIFT’s RMB Tracker reviewed Taiwan’s potential to become the next major offshore RMB clearing centre. At that time, Taiwan was #7 out of 131 countries exchanging RMB payments worldwide with 24% of all payments exchanged between Taiwan and China/Hong Kong made using the Renminbi.

“We’ve been following the RMB developments in Taiwan very closely”, says Lisa O’Connor, RMB Director at SWIFT. “These are not surprising growth figures given the historic and increasing level of direct activity between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan. Domestic companies in Taiwan are now able to issue RMB-denominated bonds. In February, the Taipei branch of Bank of China was assigned as the local RMB clearing bank and the Taiwan Stock Exchange has announced the desire to offer offshore RMB products. All of these positive moves should further support the growth of Taiwan’s RMB payments.”

Launched in September 2011, the SWIFT RMB Tracker provides monthly reporting on key statistics to understand the progress made by RMB towards becoming an international currency.