China-Africa Trade Payments Cross $1 Billion as Standard Bank’s Yuan Bet Pays Off
A year after becoming the first African bank authorised to process direct transactions through China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System, Standard Bank says the volume flowing through that channel has topped $1 billion — a fast start that points to a deeper shift in how African businesses pay their Chinese suppliers.
Standard Bank was granted approval to use CIPS in June 2025 at the Lujiazui Forum in Shanghai and went live with the service that November. Since then it has expanded access beyond South Africa into Angola, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho and Tanzania, giving clients across several of the continent’s busiest trade corridors a way to settle payments directly in renminbi rather than routing everything through the US dollar. Ontiretse Modise, the bank’s head of payments for corporate and investment banking, called the pace of adoption “clear,” pointing to strong demand for smoother trade with the world’s second-largest economy.
The mechanics matter more than they might sound. African importers have traditionally settled invoices with Chinese suppliers in US dollars, a process that adds an extra currency conversion, exposes companies to exchange-rate swings, and can slow settlement when dollar liquidity is tight in a given market. CIPS strips that step out, letting banks clear and settle payments directly in yuan, in close to real time. Standard Bank has since gone further: in June this year, it and its partner the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China were authorised by the People’s Bank of China to operate as a renminbi clearing house for transactions across 19 African countries, making it the first African bank to hold that status.
The numbers behind the push are large. China remains Africa’s biggest trading partner by a wide margin, with bilateral trade hitting a record $295 billion in 2024 — $178 billion in Chinese exports to Africa against $117 billion moving the other way. Chinese customs data show trade accelerating further in 2025, up 12.4% in the first five months of the year to roughly $134 billion. Standard Bank’s own Africa Trade Barometer found that 34% of surveyed African businesses now import from China, up sharply from 23% a year earlier, and that Asian trading partners overall are now preferred by 35% of respondents surveyed across ten African markets, up from 24% in 2024.
For Standard Bank, the milestone is also a competitive marker. It is racing to build out infrastructure ahead of rivals as more countries look to reduce reliance on the dollar for trade settlement, a trend that has gathered pace amid shifting US trade policy. The bank says it plans to extend CIPS access to additional African countries before the end of 2026. If the first year’s billion-dollar run rate holds or accelerates, it suggests African businesses are not just trading more with China — they are increasingly willing to pay for it in China’s own currency.