On February 1, 2026, the “Business Rules for the RMB Cross-border Payment System” revised by the central bank officially came into effect, and the original 2018 version of the rules was simultaneously abolished.
As the “core hub” of RMB internationalization, this upgrade of CIPS focuses on the three major pain points of account security, access convenience, and settlement efficiency. From 190 direct participants to more than 1,567 indirect participants, to countless cross-border enterprises and individuals, CIPS will usher in a comprehensive innovation in the payment experience.
The following will give you 3 minutes to understand the core changes. The central bank has used three major adjustments to reconstruct the logic of cross-border payments, each of which directly hits the pain points of the industry.
1. Account management: The zero-balance mechanism builds a secure fund safety net.
It is mandatory that all direct participants can only open one CIPS account, and the rules of “no interest accrual, no overdraft, and zero settlement at the end of the day” are implemented.
For example, if a foreign-funded bank handles cross-border settlement of 1 billion yuan on the same day, the account balance must return to zero at the end of the day.
In terms of security upgrades, funds clearly belong to participants and are completely isolated from the assets of operating institutions. Operating institutions can only open special clearing accounts with the central bank to eliminate the risk of fund accumulation.
Practical tips: Enterprises do not need to worry about occupying funds, and banks need to upgrade their systems to adapt to the daily automatic clearing process.
2. Overseas access: The threshold has been greatly lowered, making it easy for global institutions to get onboard.
The key breakthrough is to cancel the mandatory requirement for overseas institutions to bind domestic banks. They only need to entrust qualified direct participants to serve as fund custodians to apply to become direct participants.
Standardized services make message permissions, system login, business inquiry and other processes unified and standardized, and small and medium-sized banks and financial market infrastructure institutions can apply according to the standards.
The market impact is expected to exceed 220 direct overseas participants within the year, covering more countries along the “Belt and Road”.
3. Settlement mechanism: The hybrid model realizes “pay as fast or slow as you like”.
This is the most enterprise-friendly change in this upgrade, which completely solves the problem of “cannot afford to wait for large urgent orders and high cost for small batch orders”.
Real-time full settlement is suitable for cross-border investment and financing, and energy transactions, with the advantages of second-level arrival and expedited priority support; scheduled net settlement is suitable for cross-border e-commerce batch orders and personal remittances, which can reduce handling fees and liquidity usage.
In terms of flexible management, the order of payments can be adjusted within the same priority. For example, emergency stocking payments of foreign trade companies can be processed with priority, and the average arrival time is shortened by 1-2 hours.
Multiple adaptation supports complex scenarios such as simultaneous settlement of RMB against foreign currencies (PvP) and debt versus payment (DvP), covering financial transactions such as Bond Connect and the Gold International Board.
There are four types of entities that will receive direct benefits.
Cross-border e-commerce/foreign trade companies use net settlement for bulk orders to save costs, and urgent orders rely on real-time settlement to ensure delivery, and handling fees are expected to be reduced by 10% – 15%; small and medium-sized banks do not need to build their own cross-border systems, and can serve customers indirectly through agents and expand international business; personal remittances from studying abroad/immigration families are accelerated, and the security of funds is comparable to domestic transfers; financial technology companies CIPS reserves a digital renminbi collaborative interface to pave the way for cross-border digital currency payments.
A must-read for enterprises/individuals, you can adapt to the new regulations in 3 steps.
First, contact the bank for confirmation services, contact the partner bank, and check whether it has completed the CIPS system upgrade and confirm the specific service process of hybrid settlement and account management; secondly, optimize the payment strategy, choose real-time full settlement for large emergency payments (such as equipment purchase payments), and use regular net settlement for small-amount high-frequency payments (such as sample fees); finally, pay attention to the risk warning. Real-time settlement business cannot be canceled after success, and it cannot be changed after net settlement. Information needs to be carefully checked before payment.
Wang Pengbo of Broadcom Consulting pointed out: “This revision is a key step in the internationalization of RMB from ‘quantity increase’ to ‘quality’. Zero-balance accounts solve the international community’s concerns about financial security, and hybrid settlement improves the practical experience of RMB.” Data shows that the amount of CIPS processing in 2024 will reach 175 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 43%. This growth rate is expected to further increase after the implementation of the new regulations.
Starting from February 1, the “China Channel” for cross-border payments will be officially upgraded.
Whether a company is expanding its global business or an individual is managing overseas assets, they can take advantage of the new regulations to improve efficiency and reduce costs.
Which CIPS changes are you most concerned about?
Welcome to communicate in the comment area!
