According to Nomura Holdings Fx research, the Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary are at risk of currency crises over the coming years as fiscal and external challenges escalate.

The warning is based on an analysis of eight indicators, including foreign exchange reserve coverage of imports, real short-term interest rates, and fiscal policy and the current account, according to so-called Nomura's Damocles Index, which assesses the vulnerability of 32 emerging markets to a currency crisis.

The Hungarian forint is one of the worst-performing emerging market currencies this year, following a delay in financing the economic recovery by the European Union. The currencies of Romania and the Czech Republic also fell by more than 8% against the dollar. Egypt, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Pakistan have already weathered the crises but are not yet out of the woods.

Emerging market currency vulnerabilities are now at their highest level in more than two decades, the report says, and provides an “ominous warning” of growing broad-based risks.

Meanwhile, many international bank customers are the most enthusiastic about using the British pound for global payments since mid-2016, around the same time when the UK voted for Brexit, i.e. to quit the European Union. The share of global payments made using sterling has surged to 7.845% of the total in October, up almost 2 percentage points since June, according to data from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, known as SWIFT.

That’s nearly on par with the mark seen in July 2016, a month after the so-called Brexit vote took place. It’s a notable gain from this June, when use slid below 6%.

The pound is the currency of the third most popular payment, behind the U.S. dollar and the euro. The amount of transactions involving dollars slipped slightly to 42.1%, while euro usage dropped to 34.4% of the whole. The Japanese yen ranked fourth, making up 2.95% of transactions, followed by the Chinese yuan, the Canadian dollar and the Australian dollar.