Paying a Chinese Supplier from Africa: Wire Transfer, L/C, Mobile Money

The international wire transfer, or T/T, remains the dominant channel for trade with China, including from Africa. It moves via SWIFT between your bank and the seller's, with no escrow: once executed, a recall of funds is rare. Almost everywhere, one extra step applies: the local bank requires the order documents before executing the transfer, under foreign exchange rules that vary by country.

A letter of credit has a bank pay against compliant documents rather than the seller's word alone. It costs more and takes longer to set up, but remains the reference for a first supplier or a large amount. The Chinese marketplaces, Alibaba with Trade Assurance or 1688, hold funds in escrow and release them according to terms written on the platform, a protection that never replaces a pre-shipment inspection.

A letter of credit, or documentary credit, commits a bank to pay the seller against compliant documents: bill of lading, invoice, certificates. No universal legal threshold requires its use for an African buyer; the real trigger is the amount at stake and the trust placed in an unfamiliar supplier. The US government trade guides consulted for Kenya, Ghana and Ethiopia all recommend, for a first shipment, an irrevocable letter confirmed by a recognised international bank.

Some countries turn this recommendation into a requirement. In Ethiopia, for lack of foreign currency, an importer must obtain an import permit and a letter of credit covering the full imported value before ordering, except under 5,000 dollars by telegraphic transfer for urgent goods. In Egypt, the opposite trend is advancing: tighter credit terms are pushing buyers toward advance payment, and transactions must go through a documentary collection between banks.

An African bank with no direct relationship with the Chinese beneficiary's bank routes the wire through one or more correspondent banks: each one deducts fees and adds a day or two to the timeline, an effect that is more noticeable when the originating bank handles little direct flow to China.

Fintechs specialised in cross-border B2B payments have grown to shorten this circuit: they collect your payment in local currency, then forward it from a correspondent account already connected to China. Check their registration with your country's regulator before entrusting them with a payment: an unlicensed intermediary offers no recourse in case of a dispute.

In the UEMOA, eight countries share the West African CFA franc, pegged to the euro at a fixed rate of 655.957 francs per euro. Since 1 August 2025, instruction No. 002-07-2025 from the BCEAO has raised from 10,000,000 to 20,000,000 CFA francs the threshold above which an import must be domiciled with a licensed bank, which issues the foreign exchange authorisation, before any payment to China. Below that, the formality is lighter, but payment still goes through the banking system, never a personal account.

Nigeria and Ghana each have their own floating currency and their own rules. Nigeria moved to a unified, floating exchange rate system in June 2023, then the central bank launched, on 1 December 2024, an Electronic Foreign Exchange Matching System (EFEMS) that replaces the former over-the-counter market. In Ghana, a foreign currency account holder can transfer up to 50,000 dollars without prior supporting documents, a ceiling raised from 25,000 dollars in 2014; in November 2022, the Bank of Ghana had temporarily suspended this support for rice and poultry.

Kenya abolished exchange controls in 1993: residents and non-residents can convert up to 10,000 dollars without supporting documents, above which the purpose of the transfer must be documented. A separate rule caps the physical transport of currency at the border at 500,000 Kenyan shillings, or 5,000 dollars, which does not apply to a bank transfer to a Chinese factory.

Ethiopia applies the most restrictive regime: any payment abroad requires authorisation and must go through a licensed bank under the supervision of the National Bank, which requires commercial banks to surrender 50% of their export foreign currency earnings to it, a rate lowered from 70% for lack of foreign currency. The reform of the birr toward a market-based regime, effective 29 July 2024, then directive FXD/05/2026 since 25 May 2026, now let banks approve letters of credit themselves, without lifting the shortage itself. In South Africa, every payment goes through a bank authorised under the exchange controls of the South African Reserve Bank; we found no single, verifiable ceiling for a documented payment, only this mandatory route being confirmed.

Mobile money, M-Pesa in Kenya, MTN Mobile Money or Orange Money elsewhere on the continent, has changed access to financial services for millions of African traders, but it was not designed to pay a Chinese factory, which has no way to receive it directly. The real circuit remains mobile money to a bank account, then from that account to China by wire transfer.

Balance and transaction caps on a mobile money wallet are set by each operator under central bank supervision, and revised often enough that a precise figure quickly becomes outdated: check the current cap with your operator. Its real usefulness on this route remains paying a local freight forwarder, not the Chinese supplier itself.

The costliest fraud does not concern the channel chosen but the beneficiary account: a message impersonating the supplier announces a change of bank details, often just before the balance payment, and the money goes to a third-party account that is rarely recovered. The remedy stays mechanical: validate the account in the exact legal name of the seller's entity before the first transfer, never in an individual's name, and confirm any change of bank details with a call to a contact you found yourself, never a number printed in the email.

On the payment schedule, common practice among Chinese factories remains a deposit on order, often around 30% of the amount, then a balance at a stage agreed in writing: before shipment, or against a copy of the bill of lading once the container is loaded. Placing a pre-shipment inspection between the end of production and the balance payment remains the single most concrete protection, since a cross-border dispute is far slower to pursue than a check carried out before the goods leave the factory.

Sorva is a sourcing and trading house between China and the world, based in Guangzhou's Tianhe district, backed by a Chinese subsidiary whose corporate purpose covers the purchase, resale and export of goods, and by a parent company in France. Our Mandarin-speaking team on the ground verifies the beneficiary account in the exact legal name of the factory's entity, negotiates the deposit-then-balance schedule by tying it to a verifiable event, and flags any change of bank details received outside the usual channel.

Sorva is never the official importer in your country, does not clear customs on arrival and does not hold a correspondent account for your payment: these foreign exchange checks are your local bank's responsibility, based on the documents we produce. In most cases, you pay no fee: you open a file, we negotiate the goods and take a commission on their ex-factory value. Our base offer is billed in US dollars outside the European Union, with options specific to each region, quoted on request.