China’s yuan may be going global faster than Western data suggests, analysts say

Mainstream financial tracking systems are failing to capture the full extent of the Chinese yuan's internationalization, according to analysts. While the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift) reported the yuan's share of global payments by value at just 2.74% in February 2026—ranking it sixth—Beijing's official narrative claims it is the world's third-largest payment currency. The discrepancy is largely attributed to the rise of China's own Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) and bilateral settlement arrangements, which process transactions outside Swift's messaging infrastructure.

Xu Tianchen, a senior economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, argues that as these alternative systems grow, Swift becomes "less of an accurate mirror for international payments." He states that whether the yuan gains or loses share in Swift statistics is "perhaps no longer relevant," as a significant portion of its global transaction volume is now invisible to Western data sets. This shift indicates a strategic move by China to build financial infrastructure that operates independently of traditional Western-dominated systems, potentially accelerating the yuan's global role faster than external observers can measure.