Briefly hire car to collect British currency abroad (8)
I believe the answer is:
renminbi
'currency abroad' is the definition.
(Chinese currency)
'briefly hire car to collect british' is the wordplay.
'briefly' means to remove the last letter.
'hire' becomes 'rent' (I've seen this before).
'car' becomes 'mini' (Mini Cooper**).
'to collect' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'british' becomes 'b' (abbreviation e.g. in 'BBC').
'rent' with its final letter removed is 'ren'.
'mini' enclosing 'b' is 'minbi'.
'ren'+'minbi'='RENMINBI'
(Other definitions for renminbi that I've seen before include "money in China" , "payment in China?" , "change in China" , "Nine brim with Chinese currency" .)