Bank of Kigali joins Chinese payment platform for yuan settlements

Rwanda’s biggest commercial bank just plugged directly into China’s financial plumbing. Bank of Kigali signed an agreement to join the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System, known as CIPS, making it the first bank in East or Central Africa to settle transactions directly in Chinese yuan without needing a middleman.

The deal was signed on September 8 in Xiamen, China, during the second CIPS Cross-Border Bank-Enterprise Cooperation Event.

What CIPS actually does

Launched in 2015 by the People’s Bank of China, CIPS was purpose-built to handle cross-border renminbi transactions. Direct CIPS participation means Bank of Kigali can now route payments straight through, settling in yuan without intermediary detours, resulting in faster processing times, lower costs, and fewer points of failure.

Bank of Kigali isn’t entirely new to the China payments game. Back in 2022, the bank launched yuan-denominated remittance services through a partnership with Alipay and Ant Group.

Africa’s growing China connection

Standard Bank of South Africa led the charge in 2025, becoming one of the continent’s most prominent CIPS participants. Ecobank, which operates across dozens of African markets, has been exploring similar mechanisms to deepen its engagement with Chinese financial infrastructure.

The underlying driver is straightforward: trade volumes between Africa and China have been surging, with an 18% increase recorded in the prior year.

The de-dollarization question

For Rwanda specifically, joining CIPS doesn’t mean abandoning the dollar. When paying for Chinese-manufactured goods or receiving Chinese investment capital, settling directly in yuan avoids the cost of converting Rwandan francs to dollars and then to yuan. Two currency conversions become one.

As the first direct CIPS participant in East and Central Africa, BK could become a gateway node for yuan-denominated transactions across a region that includes some of Africa’s fastest-growing economies.