China Payment System Key to Yuan Global Usage, Shows Survey

China needs to start its cross-border payment system soon as the nation pushes for the yuan to be added to the International Monetary Fund’s basket of four reserve currencies, a survey by Allen & Overy LLP shows.

The London-based law firm, which interviewed 150 companies in the U.S., Europe and Asia-Pacific regions in January and February, said 74 percent of those surveyed cited a delay in the start of the China International Payments System, or CIPS, as the major obstacle to their use of cross-border yuan transactions. A centralized payment system serves to ease technical issues such as language, bolstering usage that could make the yuan “freely usable,” a key requirement under the IMF’s twice-a-decade review of its reserve-currency basket.