"The yuan's recent performance is pushing it on," said a dealer at a major Chinese bank. "There's not much movement for the dollar just now, either."
This week also saw China grant approval for 13 foreign and domestic banks to act as market-makers for yuan trading - a long-awaited move that some expected to drum up liquidity.
Shanghai-based banking sources told Reuters that the country's four largest state-owned banks had been included, as well as the Bank of Communications. But dealers were equivocal about the announcement's influence on Friday's yuan trading.
"The new mechanism is likely to widen the trading band a little bit, although movement has been pretty limited lately," the dealer said.
The yuan's steady post-Christmas rise, initially put down by some dealers to the dollar's seasonal decline, has now lasted long enough to suggest other reasons, traders said. On Friday, the yuan weakened against the euro to close at 9.5797, versus 9.5624 on Thursday. It weakened also against 100 Japanese yen, to close at 6.8716, versus 6.8466.
Three deals in one-year onshore forwards were done at 7.7730, 7.7570 and 7.7680 per dollar, anticipating that the yuan would appreciate by between 3.8 and 4.0 percent within a year.