Yuan-denominated payments rise 34 per cent, with Payment Connect mechanism acting as catalyst for multiplying cross-border use cases
2-MIN READ2-MIN1Daisy WuPublished: 8:00am, 19 Aug 2026Hong Kong’s fast-transfer payments denominated in yuan surged to a six-month high in July, signalling accelerating adoption of real-time cross-border retail payment channels even as mainland Chinese authorities maintain tight controls on capital outflows.Transaction values through Hong Kong’s Faster Payment System (FPS) for yuan reached 350.3 billion yuan (US$60 billion) in July, marking a 34 per cent increase from February, according to official data published by Hong Kong Interbank Clearing Ltd (HKICL) on Tuesday.
On a year-on-year basis, transaction value increased 16.8 per cent.
By directly linking Hong Kong’s FPS with mainland China’s internet banking payment system, the channel enables instantaneous, small-value cross-border transfers. Usage has increasingly expanded into everyday retail transactions, including university tuition, medical expenses and cross-boundary salary remittances.
“The rise in renminbi FPS transactions reflects a broader structural trend of growing renminbi payment demand, and Payment Connect is an additional catalyst by expanding cross-border use cases,” said Gary Ng, senior economist for Asia-Pacific at Natixis Corporate and Investment Bank.
The growth was also “partially due to the ongoing migration of payment infrastructure” towards the FPS system, he added.
