The share of the Chinese currency renminbi (RMB) in global payments rose by 0.03 percent month-on-month to 2.15 percent in January, the highest since 2016, global transaction service provider SWIFT said in its latest report.

The overall RMB payments value increased 15.21 percent from December, while payments in all other currencies rose 11.04 percent.

It remained the fifth most actively used currency for domestic and international payments in January, behind the U.S. dollar (40.08 percent), the euro (34.17 percent), the pound (7.07 percent), and the Japanese yen (3.30 percent), and before the Canadian dollar (1.74 percent), the Hong Kong dollar (1.50 percent), and the Australian dollar (1.44 percent).

The RMB ranked the eighth most used currency with a market share of 1.24 percent for just international payments.