Cross-Border Interbank Payment System

Founding and status

The People's Bank of China began building CIPS in 2012, and phase one went live on 8 October 2015. At launch it had 19 direct participants and 176 indirect participants from 50 countries and regions. CIPS is owned jointly by Chinese and international shareholders, with the People's Bank of China the largest at roughly 16 per cent, alongside NAFMII, UnionPay and major state-owned banks. Foreign shareholders include HSBC, Standard Chartered, Bank of East Asia, DBS, Citigroup, ANZ and BNP Paribas.

Expansion

CIPS signed a memorandum of understanding with SWIFT in March 2016. Phase two entered trial operation on 26 March 2018, went fully live on 2 May, and from 9 October supported DVP settlement and northbound Bond Connect trading. Annual throughput rose from about ¥80 trillion in 2021 to ¥96.7 trillion in 2022, ¥123.06 trillion in 2023 (6.6133 million transactions) and ¥175.49 trillion in 2024 (8.216891 million transactions), reaching ¥180.15 trillion in 2025 (8.441897 million transactions). Both value and transaction count are more than triple their 2020 levels. Participants grew from 33 direct and 903 indirect (94 countries and regions) at the end of 2019 to 176 direct and 1,514 indirect (121 countries and regions) in June 2025, covering more than 4,900 banking institutions in 189 countries and regions. In June 2025 CIPS formed its first direct partnerships with six foreign banks in the Middle East and Africa.

Functions and participant composition

CIPS's main function is to facilitate cross-border renminbi business, supporting trade in goods and services, cross-border direct investment, cross-border financing and personal overseas remittance payments. It handles customer credit transfers, interbank transfers, enquiry and response, account statements and value-added information services. As of June 2025, indirect participants were concentrated in Asia with 1,102 (including 563 in mainland China), followed by Europe with 261, Africa with 61, North America with 34, South America with 34 and Oceania with 22.

Distinction from and relationship with SWIFT

SWIFT is a global financial messaging system that delivers interbank international payment instructions: it carries messages but does not move funds. CIPS is a renminbi clearing and settlement system that actually performs clearing and settlement for cross-border yuan payments. The two are therefore best understood as complementary rather than substitutes. CIPS uses SWIFT industry standards for its financial message syntax and relies on SWIFT messaging for more than 80 per cent of its transactions. Where SWIFT serves over 11,500 institutions in more than 235 countries and regions and handles messages in nearly every major currency, CIPS concentrates on clearing and settlement for yuan payments.

Background and strategic significance

CIPS is part of the renminbi internationalization policy. The 1997 Asian financial crisis and the IMF's austerity demands, reflection on dependence on the United States and critical views of the "Washington Consensus" formed the background to pushing renminbi internationalization alongside regional currency swaps (the Chiang Mai Initiative). After the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, many Russian banks were excluded from SWIFT and placed under sanctions, bringing CIPS's strategic importance to the fore. CIPS is cited as one response to US sanctions and is assessed as contributing to de-dollarization, and after Russia's removal from SWIFT, Asian, Middle Eastern, African and BRICS countries increasingly sought yuan-based settlement. In March 2026 yuan trade settlement through CIPS reached ¥1.46 trillion, triple the 2021 figure, and two large Saudi state-owned banks joined CIPS.

Limits and unresolved points

CIPS's international scale remains limited. According to the June 2025 SWIFT renminbi tracker, the yuan accounted for only 3 per cent of global SWIFT payments, against 48 per cent for the dollar and 24 per cent for the euro. Assessments from 2022 treated CIPS as an experimental-stage complement to SWIFT and judged it unlikely to replace SWIFT (about $5 trillion and roughly 42 million messages a day); upgrading processing capacity, widening the number of participating financial institutions and strengthening security were identified as tasks. Whether CIPS can have a substantial effect on renminbi internationalization remains uncertain. One source's figure of 1.02 per cent growth in 2025 transaction volumes is not consistent with other years' growth rates or the 2026 monthly data, so it has not been adopted here.

Note on dating: the March 2016 memorandum of understanding with SWIFT is documented; a separate reference to a "March" agreement that does not name its year should not be dated to 2025.