HSBC Joins China’s Payment System in Boost to Yuan Usage

By Selena Li

HONG KONG (Reuters) – HSBC’s Hong Kong unit has joined China’s worldwide interbank renminbi payment system (CIPS) as a direct offshore participant, according to a company statement.

Beijing is pushing to internationalise the yuan, which ranks fourth in global payments according to the global bank messaging network SWIFT, and challenge the U.S. dollar, by far the world’s most widely used currency.

By any measure, the usage of renminbi is not remotely proportionate to China’s economic heft,” HSBC Asia Pacific Co-Chief Executive David Liao said during a banking event after announcing access to CIPS.

Standard Chartered’s Hong Kong unit in 2022 became the first offshore unit of a sizable global bank to directly access CIPS.

Launched in 2015, CIPS replaced a patchwork of networks and allows hassle-free renminbi transactions.

The system had 153 such members as of end-September, according to its official website, and has been more widely adopted in Russia since lenders there were banned from SWIFT over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

HSBC’s and StanChart’s China onshore operations are already in the system.

Hong Kong was the largest offshore renminbi clearing centre as of July, sharing about 83% of the world’s payments in the currency, according to SWIFT data.

(Reporting by Selena Li; Editing by Kevin Liffey)