Grey adds yuan payments for African businesses buying from China

Grey has launched Chinese yuan payments, allowing customers to pay bank accounts in China directly from their Grey balances. Customers can convert USD, EUR, GBP or stablecoins into yuan and send the money to Chinese bank accounts. The service is available to both personal and Grey Business customers. For businesses, Grey expects the service to be used mainly for paying suppliers and manufacturers. Individuals can use it for expenses such as education, travel and retail purchases in China. China is already a major trading partner for African businesses, particularly in Nigeria. 

In the fourth quarter of 2025, China accounted for 31.22% of Nigeria’s imports, making it the country’s biggest source of imported goods, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Many of those imports are products businesses need to operate or resell, including electronics, machinery, vehicles and other equipment. Grey says paying Chinese suppliers has sometimes caused problems for its customers. “We have seen customers delay purchases, put transactions on hold, or walk away from opportunities because paying a partner in China requires unnecessary complexities,” Idorenyin Obong, Grey’s CEO and co-founder, said in a statement to TechCabal. “By enabling direct Chinese Yuan payouts from existing Grey balances, we are making payments simpler so that more people and businesses can participate in global trade.”

From dollars to yuan

The new service means a business does not have to move money out of Grey before paying a Chinese supplier. If it has dollars in its Grey account, it can convert the money into yuan and send the payment to a Chinese bank account. The same applies to euros, pounds and supported stablecoins. Grey launched its business platform in February, giving African startups and SMEs access to USD corporate accounts, international payments, currency conversion and stablecoin transactions. By June, Grey said the platform had processed $61.4 million in payment volume. USDC and USDT accounted for the largest share of its cross-border transactions. 

The company is now adding payments into China to those services. It is also entering a market where other African fintechs already support payments to China. LemFi, the UK-headquartered remittance fintech, supports CNY transfers to China. Raenest also lists China among its international payout destinations. Daya, a Nigerian stablecoin fintech, is targeting trade payments involving emerging markets, including China and Hong Kong. The company raised $2.4 million in pre-seed funding in June.

African businesses already send billions to China

The demand for these services comes from an existing trade relationship. Nigeria imported $13.03 billion worth of goods from China in 2025, according to Trading Economics. South Africa imported $23.57 billion, while Kenya imported about $4.31 billion from China in 2024. Nigeria buys far more from China than it sells to the country. Trade between Nigeria and China reached almost $19.9 billion in 2024, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity. Nigeria recorded a trade deficit of about $13.3 billion. 

That trend has continued in 2026. Nigeria imported about ₦5.09 trillion ($3.81 billion) worth of goods from China in the first quarter of the year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. For fintechs, the payments behind these transactions are becoming another area to compete in. Businesses importing from China still need to get money to suppliers, and that can involve currency conversions, bank transfers and other steps before the supplier receives the payment. Grey is now handling the conversion into yuan as part of that process. For its customers, the change is simple: money already sitting in a Grey account can now be used to pay a Chinese bank account in yuan.