China's yuan, also known as the renminbi, regained its position as the fifth biggest payment currency in the world after sinking to the seventh in February, according to the cross-border renminbi index (CRI) in March 2015 released by the Bank of China on Tuesday.

The yuan accounted for 1.81 percent of payments worldwide in February, dropping from the fifth place to seventh place among the world's payments currencies. Seasonal effect is the main reason for the slippage: fewer transactions took place during the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday.

The yuan held a 2.03 percent share in world payments based on value in March, returned to the fifth place in global payment rankings. The offshore yuan payment and clearing value increased by 33 percent compared to that of February, and the Middle East and Latin America made significant contributions to the growth. The scope and scale of offshore yuan usage keeps expanding.

In addition, the cross-border use of yuan under capital accounts takes up an increasing proportion in the total cross-border transactions. The proportion grew by 5 percent in the first three months this year compared with the end of 2014.

As the yuan is becoming more “freely usable”, the yuan payment under financial and capital accounts will play a more important role in cross-border transactions in the future.

This article was edited and translated from 《人民币重新成为全球第五大支付货币》, source: Chinanews.com