China's CIPS Hits Record 920 Billion Yuan a Day in March as Sanctioned Oil Trade Shifts to Yuan
China's Cross-Border Interbank Payment System, or CIPS, settled an average 920 billion yuan (about $136 billion) a day in March 2026, up from about 300 billion yuan in 2021 and the highest on record. Daily volumes briefly reached 1.22 trillion yuan (about $180 billion) in early April, with nearly 42,000 transactions settled in a single day.
Launched in 2015 as an alternative to Western financial infrastructure, the network is seeing heavier use as Russia and Iran, both cut off from dollar-based payment systems by sanctions, increasingly settle energy trade in renminbi. Saudi Arabia is also using more renminbi in bilateral energy trade with China, according to BNP Paribas, though the yuan still accounts for an estimated 3% to 8% of global oil trade versus about 80% for the US dollar.
From the sources (2 posts)
@globalmktobserv⚠️The Iran war is accelerating the rise of the Chinese yuan in global trade: The average daily value of transactions settled through CIPS (Cross-Border Interbank Payment System) has surged from ~300 billion yuan per day in 2021 to a record
@steve_hankeThanks to the US-Israeli war on Iran, the use of China’s renminbi in cross-border trade is SURGING. Transactions through Beijing’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) recently hit RECORD HIGHS as sanctioned oil trade shifted into