China Track

Chronicle

2025: Russian banks set up China Track ruble and yuan settlement system with China

On April 22, 2025, it became known that Russian financial institutions launched a special settlement system with China called China Track, which allows making payments in rubles and yuan bypassing Western financial systems and reducing the risk of secondary sanctions for trade participants.

According to Reuters, the largest Russian banks under sanctions restrictions are participating in the project. The main feature of the system is the use of a network of intermediaries in "friendly" jurisdictions without using the SWIFT system or accounts with Western banks, which makes operations almost invisible to Western regulators.

The mechanism of operation of China Track is built on the principle of clearing, in which each bank manages a group of verified payment agents - some serve export operations, others - import. Payments are accumulated and then centrally netted, after which the total amount is transferred to recipients within a single clearing session.

According to sources in the banking sector, the system has been operating for some time and demonstrates high reliability without serious malfunctions. One of the market participants said that the Russian side was forced to build routes through friendly jurisdictions to ensure the security of settlements from possible blocking.

The economic efficiency of the new system is confirmed by a significant decrease in commission costs. The minimum cost of the China Track service, including fees and exchange rate differences, is about 1% for import operations and 0.5% for export operations. For comparison, outside this system, commissions reach 2-4%, and during periods of aggravation of problems with calculations in 2024, they rose to 12%.^[1]

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