A decade-old political vision to create a harmonised payments scheme across Europe is finally nearing its deadline. But the prospect of a Single European Payments Area never seemed so threatened by economic volatility or so opaque in regulatory direction.
Hong Kong is the world’s offshore centre for the renminbi, and now other international centres are joining the Chinese currency’s path to internationalisation. But as additional pools of liquidity are being created, will the new centres dilute the existing offshore liquidity and create separate puddles rather than one large pool?