Some of the world's largest banks are encouraging businesses to use the currency of the People's Republic of China, the yuan - also called the Renminbi - in their trade deals with China.

The Financial Times has reported that foreign and American banks are holding road shows across Asia, Europe and the U.S. to promote the idea.

"This is an integral part of pushing the internationalisation of the renminbi," said Wang Tao, chief China economist at UBS. "In order to encourage foreign institutions to get involved in renminbi settlement, you need to give them somewhere to invest."

The move will help China's push to make the yuan a major world currency, like the dollar and the euro. It would also mark another step away for the dollar from its positions as the world's main currency.

The People's Bank of China, the central bank, said that it had launched a pilot project to allow more foreign access to its largely closed domestic interbank bond market to "encourage cross-border renminbi trade settlement" and "broaden investment channels for renminbi to flow back (to China)."