Stanbic Bank Ghana has become the first bank in Ghana to offer customers direct renminbi (RMB) – otherwise known as Chinese yuan – settlement through China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), potentially changing the economics of one of Ghana’s most important international trade corridors.
The development is particularly significant because China is Ghana’s largest trading partner. Bilateral trade reached a record US$14.1 billion in 2025, up 19.3 percent from 2024. Yet the bulk of Ghana-China transactions have traditionally been conducted in United States dollars, meaning that even when the underlying transaction is between a Ghanaian importer and Chinese supplier, the payment often involves dollar conversion and correspondent-bank arrangements.
The new facility effectively gives Ghanaian businesses another, more straightforward route – cedis can be converted into yuan and the yuan payment can move directly into China’s financial system through CIPS, rather than requiring the transaction to be routed principally through a dollar-based correspondent banking chain.
How the arrangement works
CIPS is China’s principal infrastructure for cross-border yuan clearing and settlement. Unlike SWIFT, which is primarily a messaging system, CIPS provides the clearing and settlement infrastructure for yuan transactions. Direct participation gives financial institutions access to China’s domestic yuan payment infrastructure.
The Ghana development is part of a much larger Standard Bank Group initiative. Standard Bank, Stanbic Ghana’s parent, was approved in June 2025 to conduct direct CIPS transactions and indeed was the first African bank authorized to do so. By July 2026, Standard Bank reported that transactions processed through CIPS had exceeded 8 billion yuan, equivalent to about US$1.2 billion. It has subsequently extended the capability to Ghana, Angola, Kenya, Lesotho and Tanzania.
For a Ghanaian importer, the practical sequence is relatively straightforward. The importer agrees with a Chinese supplier to invoice and settle in yuan. Stanbic converts the customer’s cedis or other available foreign currency into yuan, initiates the payment through its CIPS-enabled infrastructure, and the Chinese beneficiary receives yuan through the Chinese banking system. The reverse can apply to Ghanaian exporters receiving yuan from Chinese buyers.
That removes, or at least substantially reduces, one layer of currency conversion. It also gives companies greater certainty about the currency in which the Chinese counterparty ultimately receives payment.
…and it comes at just the right time
The timing could hardly be more favourable. Ghana-China trade has expanded rapidly, while China is actively encouraging greater international use of the yuan. China has also announced zero-tariff treatment for imports from 53 African countries from May 2026, potentially increasing two-way trade and therefore the demand for more efficient payment mechanisms.
Ghana’s own trade statistics illustrate the underlying opportunity. China supplied US$4.59 billion, or 23 percent of Ghana’s imports, in 2025, making it comfortably the country’s largest import source.
The new payment channel therefore arrives at a time when Ghanaian businesses are already generating a substantial and growing demand for Chinese goods ranging from machinery and construction equipment to vehicles, steel, electronics and agrochemicals.
Lowering the cost of doing business
 The immediate commercial attraction is potentially lower transaction costs. A dollar-based China-Ghana payment can expose the importer to a cedi-dollar conversion and subsequently a dollar-yuan conversion, as well as correspondent-bank charges and intermediary processing.
Yuan settlement thus reduces the number of currency conversion stages. Stanbic itself already promotes access to yuan as a means of reducing foreign-exchange conversion costs for exporters.
For large importers, even a modest reduction in foreign-exchange spreads, correspondent fees and processing costs can produce meaningful savings. For smaller businesses, the greater benefit may be speed, predictability and reduced administrative complexity.
It should also make it easier for Ghanaian companies to negotiate directly with Chinese suppliers in the currency in which many Chinese businesses prefer to be paid. This can strengthen bargaining power and potentially improve access to supplier credit, trade finance and letters of credit.
Easier investment and financial transfers too
The implications extend beyond merchandise trade. Yuan settlement can support Chinese investment into Ghana by making it easier for Chinese companies to move working capital, pay Ghanaian suppliers and employees, and repatriate legitimate investment-related funds.
It also creates possibilities for more sophisticated yuan-denominated trade finance, cash-management and investment products. Stanbic already has a long-standing strategic relationship with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), its parent Standard Bank’s major shareholder, and has developed Africa-China trade products including yuan-denominated letters of credit.
There is no publicly announced Stanbic Ghana target for annual CIPS transaction volumes, so it is not possible to present an independent forecast as a credible bank projection.
The scale of financial flows to come
While no official estimates of expected financial flows through the new pipeline have been made by Stanbic Bank, the potential scale is substantial. Ghana-China bilateral trade of US$14.1 billion provides the underlying addressable market. If only 5 to 10 percent of that trade were eventually settled through yuan channels, the equivalent annual flow would be approximately between US$700 million and US$1.4 billion. A more mature adoption rate of 15 percent, achieved subsequently, would imply about US$2.1 billion annually.
Bank trade finance and treasury officials warn however that those figures should be regarded as enlightened possibilities rather than forecasts. The actual volume will depend on how many Ghanaian firms and Chinese counterparties agree to yuan invoicing, the relative cost of yuan versus dollar settlement, yuan liquidity, exchange-rate expectations and the willingness of Chinese suppliers to accept yuan.
The Standard Bank Group’s early experience nevertheless demonstrates that the market can scale quickly; its CIPS transactions reached 8 billion yuan within roughly the first year of operation.
What this means for Ghana’s other banks
The development does not mean other Ghanaian banks cannot facilitate China-related payments. They already do so, generally through correspondent relationships, SWIFT messaging, Chinese banks, offshore yuan centres or dollar-denominated trade finance. Stanbic itself has long offered foreign-exchange telegraphic transfers, letters of credit and import financing for China trade.
The distinction is the settlement architecture. Conventional banks can arrange a yuan payment, but a bank without comparable direct CIPS capability may depend on an intermediary institution to access China’s yuan clearing infrastructure.
That gives Stanbic a potentially important first-mover advantage. Other Ghanaian banks are likely to respond as demand develops; indeed, pan-African rival Ecobank has been discussing a yuan-denominated settlement product with Bank of China for deployment by the end of 2026.
The significance, therefore, is not that the dollar will suddenly disappear from Ghana-China trade. Rather, Ghana is acquiring a second, increasingly credible and potentially far more convenient financial highway to China. For businesses, that means more choice, potentially lower costs and faster settlement. For Ghana, it means greater diversification of its international payment infrastructure. And for China, it advances the internationalization of the yuan while embedding its currency more deeply in one of Africa’s fastest-growing trade relationships.
By: Toma Imirhe / businesspostonline
Â
