The well-known Chinese news site Sina recently reported that the number of financial settlement activities using the Chinese currency RMB has tripled in the United States. This was based on official numbers released by SWIFT (the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) for the first four months of this year. The total number of RMB transactions in the U.S. is now the third largest outside China – after Singapore and Great Britain. Starting in 2009, China lifted the restrictions on using the RMB overseas. The Chinese government has been encouraging the import/export companies to settle in RMB instead of the US dollar. According to SWIFT, between January and April, 2.6 percent of global RMB transactions were settled in the United States, making the U.S. a bigger RMB settlement center than Taiwan. SWIFT also reported that the Chinese RMB ranks seventh among all currencies in the world.
Source: Sina Finance, June 3, 2014
http://finance.sina.com.cn/stock/usstock/c/20140603/153919300724.shtml