Yuan unseats euro in trade finance

[SINGAPORE] The Chinese yuan has overtaken the euro to become the second most-used trade finance currency by value, financial payment network Swift announced yesterday.

As of October, the yuan's share of trade finance activity value was 8.7 per cent, above the euro's 6.6 per cent, though well behind the US dollar's 81 per cent, Swift said.

It has been a quick path up. In January last year, the yuan had a trade finance activity share of just 1.9 per cent.