(27 July 2026 – China) The People’s Bank of China has added 26 banks to the CBETS e-CNY cross border payments network including Standard Chartered among the first of the foreign banks to be signed.
The CBETS network is run by the digital yuan international operation centre established in Shanghai. It offers 24/7 connectivity between foreign central banks, overseas financial institutions and the e-CNY.
“What is being assembled looks like correspondent banking rebuilt around the e-CNY, with the Chinese central bank as the correspondent. The commercial case for joining is real: clients in China trade corridors increasingly invoice in yuan, and a direct connection beats the offshore clearing chain on cost and speed” commented GL Insight Director Zennon Kapron.
China’s FX regulator has pledged to help further open up the FX market while strengthening oversight of cross border capital flows. The State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) also pledged to strengthen oversight of market trading activities and crack down heavily on illegal cross border financial activities by leveraging technologies such as AI.
“We will steadily expand the institutional opening up in the FX sector. We will strengthen the monitoring of cross border capital flows, continuously refine macroprudential and expectation management, and take comprehensive measures to maintain FX market stability” the SAFE regulator said in a statement.