Wise Begins Offering B2B Transfers in Chinese Yuan 

The digital money transfer platform Wise says it can now offer B2B transfers in China in the Chinese yuan (CNY) from eight currencies. 

The company announced this move in a news release Thursday (Dec. 9), saying it had plans to expand to other currencies supported by the platform. 

Wise’s business customers had already had the ability to pay local businesses in China using the U.S. dollar. 

“However, the additional capability of making payments in CNY at the mid-market rate to their Chinese suppliers, improves price transparency for businesses on the mainland who prefer to settle in local currency,” the news release says. 

Wise points to a YouGov survey it had commissioned, in which 4,800 micro, small and medium businesses in 10 countries said that China was a marketed in which they hoped to expand.  

However, of the those companies with a presence in China already, just a quarter of them held CNY. And 76% said weren’t aware there are upfront transaction fees and markups on the exchange rate when working with foreign currencies.

Wise says its business customers will be able to transfer the equivalent of up to 850,000 CNY. Customers transferring 4000 pounds ($5,282) could expect their recipients to get up to 669 CNY more using Wise compared to traditional banks. 

“Sending cross-border payments to China comes with its own set of challenges, which can be hard to navigate for any business,” said Abhishek Choudhari, Wise’s APAC product director. 

“With the ability to send USD and CNY to China with no exchange rate markups, we’re happy to do our bit to make it a more transparent, cheap and fast process for our Wise Business customers around the world,” he said.

Read more: UK FinTech Wise Aims to Lower Money Transfer Fees in Australia

In September, Wise joined Australia’s New Payments Platform in a move designed to settle transfers in that country faster at a lower cost. 

As part of the arrangement, Wise became a direct participant and shareholder in the NPP, allowing the company to reduce the average price of transfers going in and out of Australia by letting the company settle payments without middlemen.