Grey, a Y Combinator-backed cross-border fintech, has launched Chinese yuan payouts that let customers pay suppliers directly into bank accounts in China from their USD, EUR, GBP or stablecoin balances. Business and personal Grey customers can now convert existing balances into yuan and send funds straight to Chinese accounts, cutting out the usual chain of currency conversions and intermediaries.
Solving A Real Payment Bottleneck
Grey’s leadership says the launch responds to a recurring problem for its customers. Businesses have sometimes delayed purchases, paused transactions, or abandoned deals altogether because paying a partner in China involved unnecessary friction. By enabling direct yuan payouts from existing balances, the company says it is simplifying the process so more people and businesses can participate in global trade.
The new service is available to both Grey Business and personal accounts. Businesses can use it to pay suppliers and manufacturers, while individual users can send yuan for expenses like education, travel and retail purchases in China.
Riding A Fast-Growing Trade Corridor
China is Africa’s largest single source of imports, and the numbers explain why fintechs are racing into this corridor. In the fourth quarter of 2025, China accounted for 31.22% of Nigeria’s imports, making it the country’s single biggest source of imported goods, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Nigerian businesses rely on Chinese suppliers for electronics, machinery, vehicles and other equipment.
The trade relationship is large but heavily imbalanced. Bilateral trade between Nigeria and China reached close to $19.9 billion in 2024, leaving Nigeria with a trade deficit of roughly $13.3 billion, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity. On the continental level, Nigeria imported $13.03 billion in goods from China in 2025, while South Africa imported $23.57 billion and Kenya imported about $4.31 billion in 2024, according to Trading Economics.
Grey Enters A Corridor Others Are Already Building
Grey isn’t the first African fintech chasing this market. UK-headquartered remittance platform LemFi already supports CNY transfers to China, and Raenest lists China among its international payout destinations. Daya, a Nigerian stablecoin-powered fintech that raised $2.4 million in pre-seed funding in June, is also targeting emerging-market trade settlements, particularly involving China and Hong Kong.
Grey’s business platform, launched in February, already gives African startups and SMEs access to USD corporate accounts, international payments, currency conversion and stablecoin transactions. By June, the company said the platform had processed $61.4 million in payment volume, with dollar-backed stablecoins USDC and USDT accounting for the largest share of cross-border transactions.
A Wider Shift Away From Dollar Intermediation
Grey’s move fits into a broader pattern of African financial institutions looking to simplify Africa-China settlements. Pan-African lender Ecobank has separately been in discussions with the Bank of China to build a settlement system letting African businesses pay Chinese suppliers directly in yuan, bypassing the US dollar altogether. That kind of system would eliminate the double currency conversion, local currency to dollar to yuan, that currently adds cost and delay to most transactions.
South Africa’s Standard Bank has also adopted China’s yuan-based payment system, CIPS, as part of a wider continental effort to reduce dependence on the dollar amid currency volatility and dollar scarcity across African markets.
For now, Grey’s yuan payouts give African businesses and individuals one more direct channel into China’s banking system, at a moment when the volume and the deficit in Africa-China trade keep climbing.
