Only four years ago, the renminbi ranked 35th in the league table for international payments currencies. In 2015, it sits in fifth place. The ascent has been phenomenal.
China’s relaxation of cross-border flow policies and the People’s Bank of China’s appointment of international renminbi clearing centres over the past decade have been crucial to this rise. But more needs to be done at institutional and regulatory level to achieve renminbi internationalisation, and hence full convertibility of the currency and seamless usage worldwide. And events in the past few months – mainland China’s stock market crash and the downward revision of the renminbi – have raised more questions still, say analysts.