Tanzania’s Stanbic Bank Launches Direct Yuan Settlement for China Trade

Tanzania · FINANCE

Stanbic Bank Tanzania has launched direct yuan settlement for trade with China, letting businesses pay and receive renminbi without first converting through the US dollar. The service, unveiled in Dar es Salaam on Aug. 12, 2026, cuts transaction costs and speeds payments for Tanzanian importers and exporters.

What the direct yuan settlement service does

Stanbic Bank Tanzania, a member of South Africa’s Standard Bank Group, launched the service in Dar es Salaam on Wednesday, 12 August 2026. Stanbic says it is the first bank in Tanzania to offer direct renminbi settlement, and the service is available to corporate, commercial, small and medium enterprise, and retail clients.

The service allows Tanzanian businesses to pay Chinese suppliers and receive payments from Chinese buyers directly in renminbi, the Chinese currency also known as RMB or CNY. Until now, such transactions typically had to be routed through the US dollar first, adding conversion costs and delays.

The bank said the service is being offered in line with Bank of Tanzania regulatory guidelines. It runs on Stanbic’s parent, Standard Bank Group, which the People’s Bank of China authorised in 2026, working with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, to act as a renminbi clearing bank for Africa.

Stanbic says the Dar es Salaam launch also brought the bank onto CIPS, China’s cross-border interbank payment system. Deputy Minister for Industry and Trade Dennis Londo called it more than the introduction of a new banking product, describing it as a step towards linking finance and trade.

Bank of Tanzania Deputy Governor Sauda Msemo was careful to keep the politics out of it. Our focus, she said, is not on promoting any specific currency but on ensuring businesses have access to efficient, safe and reliable payment channels.

Why the timing matters for Tanzania

Tanzania has long had deep commercial and infrastructure ties with China, its largest trading partner for more than a decade. The new service is likely to matter most for importers of Chinese machinery, consumer goods and industrial inputs, and for Tanzanian exporters that invoice Chinese buyers.

Official and bank estimates of that trade diverge sharply. Deputy Minister Londo put 2025 exports to China at US$512.6 million and imports at US$5.64 billion, about US$6.2 billion in total, while Stanbic chief executive Manzi Rwegasira said bilateral trade reached over US$11 billion in 2025, up 27%.

Stanbic Bank Tanzania was established in May 1995 after Standard Bank Group acquired Meridien Biao Bank Tanzania Limited. The bank also runs a Borderless Banking platform across Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and South Sudan, though that product does not currently handle renminbi.

Standard Bank’s Africa-wide clearing role is the more likely route to spreading yuan settlement regionally.

China’s wider yuan push across Africa

The Tanzanian launch fits a broader pattern. Reuters reported in June 2026 that China’s removal of tariffs on imports from 53 African countries, effective 1 May 2026, and a surge in China–Africa trade are expected to boost yuan use in settlements.

That extension mainly benefited non-least-developed countries such as Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa; Tanzania, as one of 33 African LDCs, has had duty-free access since December 2024.

Bloomberg reported in January 2026 that China is using Africa to widen yuan usage, citing moves such as Zambia allowing Chinese mining companies to pay certain taxes in yuan and Kenya converting some Chinese debt into yuan. These steps are incremental, not a wholesale replacement of the dollar.

The most credible reports describe a gradual shift in trade settlement, debt servicing, and banking infrastructure toward RMB usage in specific corridors tied to China. The yuan is gaining functional use in Africa without displacing local currencies or the dollar as the dominant global reserve and invoicing currency.

The CIPS network and settlement rails

China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System, known as CIPS, is Beijing’s yuan-clearing alternative to parts of the dollar-dominated correspondent banking system. It had roughly 210 direct and more than 1,600 indirect participants by mid-2026, up from 174 direct participants in May 2025.

CIPS settled about 180 trillion yuan (about US$26.7 trillion) in 2025, after 175 trillion yuan (about US$26 trillion), roughly US$24.4 trillion, in 2024, according to its own published data. African banks are increasingly linking into this ecosystem as trade with China expands.

China–Africa trade hit a record US$348.05 billion in 2025, a 17.7% rise, according to Chinese customs data compiled by Singapore’s NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies — the same surge Reuters cited in June as a driver of yuan settlement demand. That scale creates practical demand for non-dollar settlement options, especially for importers and exporters facing foreign-exchange volatility and correspondent bank fees.

Who gains and what to watch next

The clearest winners are Tanzanian businesses that trade frequently with Chinese counterparties. They can now avoid a two-step currency conversion, which should reduce costs and shorten settlement times.

Standard Bank’s role as a renminbi clearing bank for Africa is what could spread yuan settlement beyond Tanzania. The service also gives Stanbic a product to attract clients who want faster access to Chinese markets.

The broader read-through is geopolitical. Tanzania is now part of a growing African cluster using yuan-based infrastructure as China builds alternatives to Western payment systems, a theme tracked in Africa: The New Scramble.

More: Tanzania news in English, every day from The Rio Times.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

• Xinhua — Stanbic launches direct RMB settlement (12 Aug 2026)
• Daily News Tanzania — Direct yuan settlement launch
• JamhuriMedia (Swahili) — Stanbic first in Tanzania on direct yuan payments
• NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies — China–Africa trade 2025

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