4.4 Why are we launching with South African banks?
Compliance, "Unfair" BRICS Advantage, and Scale
Last updated
Compliance, "Unfair" BRICS Advantage, and Scale
Last updated
We're located in South Africa for 3 reasons: compliance, "unfair" advantage, and scale.
In 2024, South Africa became the first African nation to license and regulate crypto asset providers, including tokenisation services. Key: investor funds can simultaneously remain on-chain while being locally domiciled without conversion (i.e., off-ramped) into domestic fiat currency.
The South African Reserve Bank regulates a common currency union of 16 countries (SADC) interlinked by 1 settlement hub in Johannesburg. Its high volume (i.e. liquid): 400k large intraSADC transactions, worth $100 billion annually. ChinaAI uses the same hub-spoke model, existing multilateral agreements, and shared regulatory oversight to scale with five regional banks.
The charts below note the dominance of South African banks in Sub-Saharan Africa. They illustrate that 70% of the region’s trade finance is managed by four dominant banks: Absa, Standard Bank, Nedbank, and First Rand. The latter two being ChinaAI affiliates.