(Trillions of yuan cleared per year)
Renminbi payments cleared through China's cross-border system (CIPS). 2 series: Value cleared, Payments (millions). Latest, 2025: Value cleared 180.2; Payments (millions) 8.4.
China's own clearing system for cross-border payments in renminbi, live since October 2015. It counts only what clears through CIPS: renminbi paid through correspondent banks, or messaged over Swift without clearing in CIPS, is not here. Values are nominal yuan, so they are not comparable with the dollar system in the companion chart without an exchange rate, and growth slowed to 2.7% in 2025 after 43% in 2024.
See also: Laurence Wilse-Samson, "Global Finance: A Money View", chapter 27, The Future of the Dollar System
Classroom exerciseCompute the average CIPS payment (value divided by transactions) in 2016 and in 2025, in millions of yuan. Then convert 2025's total to dollars at about 7.2 yuan per dollar and compare it with CHIPS's annual value in the companion chart. How large is CIPS relative to the dollar's private clearing system, and what does the change in the average payment suggest about who uses it? Teach page
Cite asBalance of Power, "Renminbi payments cleared through China's cross-border system (CIPS)", data through 2025. Source: People's Bank of China, Overall operation of the payment system (支付体系运行总体情况), annual editions, CIPS paragraph; figures supplied to the PBOC by CIPS's operator. Read from the PDFs; provenance in data/static/cips/SOURCE.md.
| Date | Value cleared | Payments (millions) |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 26.4 | 1.4 |
| 2019 | 33.9 | 1.9 |
| 2020 | 45.3 | 2.2 |
| 2021 | 79.6 | 3.3 |
| 2022 | 96.7 | 4.4 |
| 2023 | 123.1 | 6.6 |
| 2024 | 175.5 | 8.2 |
| 2025 | 180.2 | 8.4 |
Alongside: Dollar payments cleared through CHIPS, the private U.S. clearing system
| Column | Source | Series key | Status | Data through |
|---|---|---|---|---|
value | cips | value_cny_tn | live | 2025 |
transactions | cips | transactions | live | 2025 |