Commentary: RMB internationalization benefits whole world

The internationalization process of China's currency has made a new stride forward during the ongoing World Economic Forum annual meeting, with Beijing and Bern inking a deal to expand financial cooperation.

Under the agreement, signed Wednesday in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, China gives Switzerland an 8-billion-U.S.-dollar investment quota under its Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor program, and the two sides plan to open a Chinese bank in Zurich for future RMB clearance.

With China having become a leading economy and trading power, the RMB's cross-border settlement has been surging. Official figures show that the volume shot up from an equivalent of 580 million dollars in 2009 to 1.3 trillion dollars in the first 10 months of 2014.

A report released last November by Belgium-based global payment services company SWIFT ranked the RMB as the seventh payments currency in the world. In 2011 it ranked the 21st.

China is moving steadily along the path of RMB internationalization, following a strategy described as "crossing the river by feeling the stones." So far 12 cities, including Hong Kong, London, Paris and Sydney, have officially announced the establishment of an offshore RMB center.

The benefits are clear. For Chinese banks, the process provides a strategic opportunity to follow their clients abroad and develop their international payments clearing business.

Chinese companies, especially small- and medium-sized ones, can use the RMB for cross-border trade instead of a foreign currency, thus reducing its foreign exchange costs and risks.

For foreign companies, the process will facilitate their business with more Chinese enterprises, helping increase the overall size of trade, diversify their assets, and hedge against depreciation of one currency.

Analysts described the path of the RMB internationalization as a three-phase process: using the currency first for trade, then for investment and in the longer term as a reserve currency.

The development of the RMB in the first and second stages has grabbed the attention of the financial community worldwide, but some strategic actions are still needed to drive the internationalization process.

More liberal policies and less restrictions are needed to create more transparent and standardized frameworks for RMB payments and investments, so as to foster a more favorable regulatory environment.

Improvement of domestic financial markets also marks a crucial part in the internationalization of the RMB, which means China needs to build a more open and larger financial market with a richer variety of products.

The internationalization of a country's currency keeps pace with the same process of the country's banking system. Given that, the Chinese banks, with five rated as the world's top 20 financial institutions, should consider how to better play their role.

The international usage of the RMB is still in its early days, but in the long run it helps diversify and improve the global reserve system, which is currently dominated by a volatile U.S. dollar. Endi