Following the sanctioning of Russia by exclusion from SWIFT, heated discussions emerged in China about accelerating the build-up of an alternative international payment system based on RMB. Actually, China has made significant progress in ramping up its Cross-border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) since 2015. However, the prospects of CIPS largely depend on the pace of China’s capital account opening and China’s investment attractiveness for foreign institutions in the long run.
