XTransfer will launch a new local service point in South Africa, and the African market layout of B2B cross-border trade payment will continue to advance.
XTransfer will hold an opening ceremony on June 1, 2026 in Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa, located at Sinosteel Plaza.
According to relevant information, XTransfer will launch localized financial services in South Africa to provide support for cross-border merchants around South African local accounts, cross-border collection and payment, settlement, exchange rate and local team services.
Sandton is an important financial and business district in Johannesburg and an area where South Africa’s financial and commercial institutions are concentrated.
XTransfer chose to open an office here, indicating that its African market layout has further extended from remote services and cooperation networks to local team and local account capacity building.
The establishment of a branch in South Africa this time occurred during the process of XTransfer’s listing in Hong Kong.
The application version of Extransfer Limited disclosed by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange shows that XTransfer was established in 2017 and is positioned as a B2B cross-border trade payment platform.
As of March 31, 2026, XTransfer had approximately 897,000 registered small and medium-sized enterprise customers and provided payment services to more than 200 countries and regions through cooperation with financial institutions.
From the perspective of business model, XTransfer mainly serves small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises.
In cross-border trade, enterprises need to handle multiple links such as collection, exchange, payment, cash withdrawal, reconciliation, and transaction review. If any link is inefficient, it will affect capital turnover.
Different from wallets or remittance products for individual users, XTransfer is closer to a platform that builds account services, payment and settlement, foreign exchange exchange and risk control review capabilities around the capital flow of foreign trade enterprises.
B2B cross-border payment is not a single-point remittance business, but an enterprise service formed around trade authenticity, collection and payment efficiency, exchange rate costs and fund security.
The platform not only helps companies complete cross-border fund collection and payment, but also handles transaction background review, account stability, abnormal transaction identification and collaboration with local financial institutions.
Transaction size is the most direct data to observe the expansion of XTransfer business.
The prospectus documents show that from 2023 to 2025, the TPV of the XTransfer platform was US$18.633 billion, US$32.618 billion and US$60.516 billion respectively; during the same period, FX
The volume is US$12.969 billion, US$24.284 billion and US$46.526 billion respectively; the payment and withdrawal scales are US$18.318 billion, US$32.087 billion and US$59.215 billion respectively.
The document also states that TPV is not directly realized, but will eventually be converted into foreign exchange transaction volume and payment and withdrawal scale.
Transaction size is the entrance, and income performance is determined by foreign exchange services, payment and withdrawal services, account services and related charging capabilities.
The greater the transaction volume, the more foreign exchange, payment, and cash withdrawal demands the platform can handle, which will also bring higher pressure on compliance review, cooperation with financial institutions, anti-money laundering risk control, and fund management.
In addition to transaction size, the revenue structure can better explain the platform’s business model.
The prospectus document shows that XTransfer’s total revenue in 2025 will be US$248.46 million, of which payment service revenue will be US$208.187 million, accounting for 83.8%; customer fund interest income will be US$38.364 million, accounting for 15.4%; value-added service revenue will be US$1.909 million, accounting for 0.8%.
The document also disclosed that its customer fund interest income comes from the interest generated by the temporary deposit of customer funds in relevant accounts before payment, withdrawal or further instructions. Customers are not entitled to such interest under the agreement.
This income needs to be understood under specific disclosure standards.
The interest income on customer funds disclosed by XTransfer is part of the income structure of its group business and related account arrangements, and cannot be simply equated to the income from customer reserves of non-bank payment institutions in mainland China.
The attraction of the South African market first comes from trade relations.
Trade data from the South African Revenue Service in March 2026 show that China is South Africa’s largest export destination, accounting for 11.1%; it is also South Africa’s largest import source, accounting for 22.0%.
The trade between China and South Africa provides practical needs for cross-border collection and payment, exchange, settlement, reconciliation and trade authenticity verification.
For foreign trade companies, orders, shipments, collections, exchanges and payments are not separate links.
The larger the trade scale, the higher the requirements for stable accounts, exchange rate costs, account arrival efficiency and compliance audits.
For cross-border payment platforms, whether they can provide local account and service support directly affects the company’s capital turnover experience.
South Africa itself is also in the stage of modernizing its payment system.
The South African Reserve Bank introduced that its Payments Ecosystem Modernization Program is an important project to promote the modernization of the payment ecosystem, with the goal of building a fast, simple, inclusive and secure digital payment system.
The South African Reserve Bank also mentioned in the payment system introduction that the National Payment System Framework and Strategy – Vision 2025 released in 2018 provides a roadmap for the construction of South Africa’s national payment system.
There are still many practical difficulties in the African cross-border payment market.
AfricaNenda’s article in February this year pointed out that cross-border payments in Africa need to promote regulatory coordination of payment services, especially coordination of anti-money laundering frameworks; regulatory differences will affect competition, efficiency and cost of cross-border payment services.
Its past research also mentioned that fragmented rules and inconsistent compliance requirements will bring resistance to transaction flow.
Next, XTransfer’s South African business mainly focuses on three things.
First, the service boundaries of B2B cross-border payment platforms are expanding.
In the past, many cross-border payment products mainly helped Chinese sellers collect global payments; now, platforms need to cover more two-way trade scenarios and handle the payment, exchange and reconciliation needs between Chinese companies and overseas local companies.
Second, overseas localization is not just a sales team issue.
Cross-border payments entering a market require the cooperation of local financial institutions, regulatory qualifications, KYC and AML capabilities, local and foreign currency liquidity arrangements, and the processing of temporary deposits, withdrawals, refunds and abnormal transactions of customer funds.
Third, the listing process in Hong Kong will subject XTransfer’s globalization efforts to closer scrutiny.
XTransfer chose South Africa because of its market base.
There are both the basis for China-Africa trade and access to the Southern African regional market, as well as the changing payment regulatory and infrastructure environment.
But it also means higher compliance requirements and more complex localization costs.
For XTransfer, the South Africa office is a step towards localization for the African market.
What determines the value of this step is not the opening ceremony, but whether the subsequent local accounts are stable, whether the funding path is clear, whether the regulatory qualifications are clear, and whether the risk control review is efficient.
As the listing process in Hong Kong advances, the South African business will also become a new window for the outside world to observe XTransfer’s global capabilities.
