Standard Bank, Africa’s largest lender by assets, processed RMB3.39 billion ($500 million) in transactions in the four months to February 2026, after going live on China’s Cross-border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) on November 20, 2025.
The Johannesburg-based bank secured its CIPS licence in Shanghai in June 2025 and went live three months later, responding to demand to diversify away from the US dollar and euro in trade settlement.
The move positions the bank in China-Africa trade flows worth $277.2 billion a year: $178.6 billion in Chinese exports to Africa and $98.6 billion in African exports to China.
“In November 2025, we became the first African bank to be admitted to China’s Cross-border Interbank Payment System and have processed half a billion US dollar worth of Renminbi transactions in our first four months alone. In practice, this means that an African manufacturer buying inputs from China no longer needs to route that payment through US dollars or Euros, paying correspondent banking fees and bearing currency risk,” said Lungisa Fuzile, Standard Bank’s Chief Executive for Africa Regions and Offshore, at the Africa Unlocked Summit in Cape Town.
Yuan clearing status gives Standard Bank access to China’s onshore financial system, including capital markets, liquidity, and payment solutions.
African economies have been cutting dollar reliance since the acute shortage of 2023–2024, when US Federal Reserve rate hikes drove heavy outflows from frontier and emerging markets. In 2025, Kenya re-denominated its $6 billion standard gauge railway loan from dollars to RMB, cutting its 2026/27 debt redemption to China to $554.8 million, down 8.5 percent on 2024/25, with interest payments down 11.9 percent to $223.3 million.
William Blackie, Standard Bank’s Chief Executive for Business and Commercial, called the bank’s partnership with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China “important,” adding: “One can open Renminbi accounts and settle payments more efficiently with Chinese suppliers and reduce friction as they engage in trade.”