美元在全球支付中仍接近50%占比，人民币在SWIFT的交易量仅2.7%，且低于2024年。中国因此在布建替代系统。人民币数位版e-yuan以区块链整合讯息、对帐与资产转移，可绕开SWIFT。于mBridge（中国、香港、泰国、阿拉伯联合酋长国、沙乌地）平台，已处理超过55亿美元贸易，人民币占交易量的95%。但大多数高额跨境结算仍在纽约CHIPS进行，该系统透过美联储预先存款帐户清算，任何美元仅短暂触及美国伺服器即引发美国司法管辖，这就是追诉Huawei财务长Meng Wanzhou的制度基础。
中国的CIPS在3月出现更明显讯号：平均日交易额为9210亿人民币，约1350亿美元，较上月上升近50%，仍明显低于CHIPS的约2.2兆美元日流量。增长具有结构性，从2021年约每天3500亿人民币上升到2024年初超过6000亿人民币，导火索是2023年12月美国次级制裁及中国通缩期美元融资成本上升，促使阿联、土耳其及中亚银行转向人民币结算。自2024年起，直接透过CIPS内部讯息连线的银行成长40%至193家，对比CHIPS仅42成员。Benn Steil与Yuma Schuster指出，人民币在SWIFT份额下降未必代表使用下降，可能反映更多支付转入私下的非SWIFT通道；若全球约20%的石油与天然气支付能在美国财政部监测外流转，则美国支付霸权的寿命并非无限。
Russia’s 2022 exit from SWIFT after Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine invasion gave China its first opening against dollar dominance, yet by early 2026 the article says visible signs were still hidden. The Iran conflict changed that: Iran now accepts ship passage payments in yuan or cryptocurrency into controlled accounts at small Chinese banks, and pays Chinese contractors or imports through oil-for-goods swap flows. This is framed as a triple revolt against U.S. financial control—payment currency, messaging, and settlement channel—so the challenge appears in infrastructure shifts rather than headline shares.
The dollar remains near 50% of global payments, while the yuan is 2.7% of SWIFT volumes, lower than in 2024. China is nonetheless building an alternative stack. The e-yuan layers messaging, reconciliation, and asset transfer on blockchain and can bypass SWIFT. In mBridge (China, Hong Kong, Thailand, UAE, Saudi Arabia), over 55 billion dollars in trade has been processed, with e-yuan accounting for 95% of volume. Most other high-value transfers still clear through CHIPS in New York, where prefunded Federal Reserve accounts create a U.S. jurisdiction trigger whenever a dollar touches American servers.
Beijing’s CIPS showed a stronger signal in March: 921 billion yuan average daily volume, about 135 billion dollars, near 50% above the previous month, though still far below CHIPS’s roughly 2.2 trillion dollars. Growth has been structural from about 350 billion yuan daily in 2021 to over 600 billion by early 2024, after December 2023 U.S. secondary sanctions and rising dollar funding costs in China’s disinflationary cycle pushed banks in UAE, Turkey, and Central Asia toward yuan settlement. Banks directly connected via CIPS internal messaging rose 40% since 2024 to 193 institutions, versus 42 CHIPS members. Benn Steil and Yuma Schuster argue lower RMB visibility in SWIFT can reflect private off-SWIFT routing; if 20% of global oil and gas payments can move outside U.S. Treasury monitoring, U.S. financial dominance has a finite runway.