How an international payment to China reaches the supplier
You have the supplier's details in front of you: a company name in two alphabets, an account number, a SWIFT code, and a twelve-digit number labelled CNAPS. One of those decides where the money physically arrives, and it is not the one most people paste first. This page is about rails rather than brands — what each one carries, what it needs from you, and which one a payment into a Chinese company account actually ends on.
Price the invoice
Enter the invoice in yuan and choose how you would fund it.
You send about
1,490.82 USDT
≈ $1,490.82
1 USDT ≈ ¥6.71
What a CNAPS code is, and why it decides the payment
CNAPS is the domestic clearing system the People's Bank of China runs, and a CNAPS code is a twelve-digit number identifying the exact branch that holds your supplier's account — the job a sort code does in Britain or a routing number in the United States. A SWIFT code names their bank to the outside world; the CNAPS code names the branch inside China. Nearly every payment entering the country, whatever it is called on the way in, finishes as a CNAPS credit to a branch. This route is built on that: the supplier is paid in CNY over CNAPS, into a business bank account on the Chinese mainland, and an individual's account or a Hong Kong bank gets a refusal from the server rather than a warning. The near end is a USDT or USDC balance — or, in Nigeria alone, a naira bank transfer. The figure we publish is a reading taken at a stated moment against live liquidity: it is not locked, not guaranteed, and not the rate anything settles at.
- CNY over CNAPS, into a mainland company account
- Twelve digits name the branch; SWIFT names the bank
- Funded from USDT or USDC — naira only in Nigeria
Four rails, and what each one actually carries
These are rails, not vendors. Every service with a name of its own is one of these four wearing a logo, and what decides whether your payment lands is the rail underneath it.
SWIFT correspondent banking
- What it is
- A message between banks, handed down a chain of correspondents until one of them holds an account with the supplier's bank.
- What reaches the supplier
- CNY, or a currency converted by the receiving bank, less whatever each correspondent deducted on the way.
- What you need in hand
- The bank's SWIFT or BIC, the full account number, the beneficiary's registered name and address, and almost always a payment-purpose code.
- Where it fits
- When you need a bank-stamped confirmation: a customs file, a letter of credit, an auditor. Your bank issues that; this route does not.
CNAPS domestic clearing
- What it is
- China's own clearing system, run by the People's Bank of China. The twelve-digit code identifies the branch holding the account.
- What reaches the supplier
- CNY in the account whose branch the code names. It is the last leg of nearly every payment into China, including the other three rows here.
- What you need in hand
- The CNAPS code, the account number, and the company name exactly as it is registered.
- Where it fits
- Not a rail you choose — the one every route ends on. Asking your supplier for it is the fastest way to learn whether their details are complete.
Cards and consumer remittance
- What it is
- Money-transfer services and card rails built for one person paying another: cash over a counter, a wallet, a personal account.
- What reaches the supplier
- Small amounts, converted at the operator's own rate and often into a personal account or wallet.
- What you need in hand
- A recipient's personal details; several of these will not credit a company account at all.
- Where it fits
- Family remittances and small personal sums. A supplier invoice paid this way lands under the wrong name, which is the problem it looked like it solved.
This route (Unigox)
- What it is
- A stablecoin balance at your end, a CNY payout over CNAPS at theirs, into the supplier's company account on the Chinese mainland.
- What reaches the supplier
- CNY in the business account named on the invoice. Individuals and Hong Kong are refused by the server, not flagged by a message.
- What you need in hand
- The company name, account number and CNAPS code, plus a USDT or USDC balance — or a naira bank transfer if you are in Nigeria.
- Where it fits
- Payments declared as goods or services, from roughly 55 CNY to about 65,000 CNY, quoted off whatever liquidity exists when you ask.
What a B2B cross-border payment is once you take the brochure off
A business-to-business payment that crosses a border is three separate things bolted together, and the marketing around it usually describes one. There is a funding leg, where money leaves you in whatever you happen to hold. There is a conversion, where one currency becomes another at somebody's rate. And there is a delivery leg, where a domestic system inside the destination country credits a named account. Providers differ mainly in which of the three they run themselves and which they buy from someone else, and the price you are quoted is the sum of all three whether or not it is broken out that way.
That is why comparing an overseas supplier payment on a headline rate alone tends to mislead. The leg that fails is almost never the conversion; it is delivery. A beneficiary name that does not match the account, a branch code taken from the wrong system, a company that trades under one name and banks under another — that is what leaves money sitting in a verification queue in a country whose banks you cannot call. Ask any provider which system performs the last leg and what it needs from you, and you will learn more than a rate comparison can tell you.
What SWIFT gives you that this route does not
SWIFT's real product is not speed. It is paperwork. A wire sent through your own bank produces a bank-issued confirmation with the bank's name on it, and that document is what a customs file, a letter of credit or an auditor is asking for when they ask for proof of payment. This route does not produce one. It produces an order record and a payout confirmation, which satisfies a supplier and an accountant and does not satisfy a bank's counterparty. If the document is the requirement, send the wire through your bank. That is the honest answer, and it does not change because we would rather keep the payment.
Where SWIFT costs you is the other side of the same trade. A correspondent chain you did not choose can deduct along the way, so the supplier receives less than the invoice and asks you for the difference; the conversion happens at the receiving bank's rate, which you find out about afterwards; and until it lands, nobody in the chain can tell you where the money is. Payments on this route travel declared as goods or services, quoted between roughly 55 CNY and about 65,000 CNY off whatever liquidity exists at the moment you ask. What you see is a reference reading with the time of the reading beside it — never a band we publish and then hold to, and never a promise about the rate your payment settles at.
The questions that come with the bank details
- What is a CNAPS code, and where does my supplier find it?
- It is the twelve-digit number that identifies, within China's domestic clearing system, the branch where the account is held. The People's Bank of China administers it, and Chinese banking staff call it the interbank number. Your supplier gets it from their own bank or from their corporate online banking; it is not something you can reliably work out from the account number. It is also not their SWIFT code, and asking for both is the quickest way to find out whether the details you were sent are complete.
- My supplier sent a SWIFT code and a CNAPS code. Which one do I use?
- Both are real and they belong to different legs. A SWIFT code — eight or eleven characters, letters and digits, the thing people look up as the SWIFT code of a China bank — names their bank to a bank abroad, which is what your own bank needs if it is the one sending the wire. The CNAPS code names the branch to the clearing system inside China, which is what the domestic leg needs. On this route you supply the company name, the account number and the CNAPS code. Pasting one into the other's field is the most common single reason a payment to China comes back.
- Can this pay an individual, or an account in Hong Kong?
- No, and it is not a rule that bends. The payout goes to a business account on the Chinese mainland, under the name on the invoice, and the server declines anything else instead of showing a warning you can click past. Hong Kong belongs to a different clearing system from the one this route settles on, so it is not a matter of preference. The common version of the problem is the sourcing agent who asks to be paid personally and says he will square up with the factory afterwards — a request that arrives sounding like a favour, and the classic way an import goes wrong once the money has left.
- Is the number I can see the rate I will pay?
- No. What is published is a reference reading with the moment it was taken beside it, drawn from live liquidity: it is not locked, not guaranteed, and not a settlement rate. Quoting has run from roughly 55 CNY at the small end to around 65,000 CNY at the large one, and every payment travels declared as goods or services. Funding comes from a USDT or USDC balance, with one exception anywhere in the product: in Nigeria you can also fund by naira bank transfer. Outside Nigeria there is no local-currency funding route, and anyone telling you otherwise is describing a different product.
Which method to use, and what to do on the day
Put a real invoice through it
Enter the CNY on the invoice and the CNAPS details your supplier sent. The cost of funding it appears against a reading taken at that moment, and nothing is committed until you say so.
Price the invoice in CNY