SEP
25
2025
Clearing the Way to Renminbi Domination: CIPS, Antitrust and Currency
Description
About the Seminar
China watchers have decried the emergence of the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (“CIPS”) as a turning point in the move to dethrone the U.S. dollar. This Article situates CIPS, which clears and settles Chinese renminbi transactions, with other financial market infrastructures, drawing lessons from how those entities have thrived or failed. In recent conversations, CIPS has been conflated with other infra-structures (e.g., the SWIFT payment messaging system) and currency trends (e.g., de-dollarization and sanctions evasion). However, a currency clearinghouse is very different than most financial institutions. For CIPS, the market-maker in the adjacent trading market is the Chinese government, a sovereign state that wields a mono- poly over the renminbi. Although the global currency trading market exhibits competition, monetary sovereignty complicates the analysis of monopolization. This Article’s primary contribution is to present a coherent theoretical framework for CIPS by synthesizing the treatment of currency clearinghouses across law, finance, and economics. The Article concludes that CIPS cannot, by itself, guarantee widespread acceptance of the renminbi.
About the Speaker
Felix B. Chang is a Professor of Law and the Co-Director of the Corporate Law Center. Previously, he founded and directed the College’s Institute for the Global Practice of Law, which designed training programs for attorneys from around the world. Professor Chang regularly teaches Antitrust, Business Associations, Securities Regulation, and Wills and Estates. He has received the College’s Harold C. Schott Scholarship Award and Goldman Prize for Excellence in Teaching, and his work has been recognized by the University’s Faculty Excellence Award and Trans-Disciplinary Research Leadership Program. Professor Chang’s writings span broad aspects of markets, inheritance, and inequality. In antitrust and financial regulation, his prior scholarship examined the balance between competition and systemic risk in the derivatives markets. Along with an interdisciplinary team, he is currently developing new tools for antitrust research through topic modeling. In the areas of wealth and racial inequality, Professor Chang has written on the redistributive potential of legal rules in trusts and estates, as well as the parallels between Roma inclusion and the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. Currently, he is working on how inheritance laws affect inequality in China and the United States. Professor Chang earned his BA from Yale and his JD from Michigan.
Terms and Conditions
By filling up this Registration Form,
i. Participants agree and consent that their personal data provided in this form may be collected, used, processed, and disclosed by NUS and the event organisers for the purposes of processing their registration, in accordance with the Personal Data Protection Act 2012 and all subsidiary legislation related thereto.
In respect to disclosure, NUS may disclose participants personal data to thirdparties (which may be in or outside of Singapore) where necessary for such purposes.
ii. Participants will also consent to NUS taking photographs and videos for the purposes of event reporting, marketing, publicity, and media/social media. Participants further consent to NUS disclosing such photographs and videos to third party media entities (whether in Singapore or otherwise) for publicity purposes, and NUS may identify them by name.
iii. NUS and designated event organisers reserve the right to alter any of the programme or other arrangements for this event, including cancellation or postponement of the event, should circumstances so warrant.
Date and Time
Thursday, 25th September 2025 4:00PM GMT+08:00
to
Thursday, 25th September 2025 5:15PM GMT+08:00
Organisation
Faculty of Law
Contact Email
cbfl@nus.edu.sg
Location
Lee Sheridan Conference Room (Eu Tong Sen Building), NUS Bukit Timah Campus, 469 Bukit Timah Road