“Cooperation with China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) is important for the country as it creates new opportunities for banks included in the system to improve transfer efficiency”, according to a statement from the National Bank of Georgia.

NBG explained that “this will be an additional channel for making mutual transfers in yuan more transparent, direct and cost-effective, while making the payment process more sustainable and reliable.”

The Bank echoed “speculative statements” that CIPS is supposedly an alternative to SWIFT, stressing that “CIPS does not represent an alternative to SWIFT.”

“It should be noted that as of June 2025, more than 4,900 financial institutions from 189 countries are included in the CIPS network. Among them are 261 banking institutions from Europe, 34 from North America, 34 from South America, and 22 from Australia/Oceania, most of which simultaneously use both SWIFT and CIPS, as well as possibly other regional payment systems.

Any consideration related to replacing SWIFT with any system, including CIPS, is complete disinformation.

We consider CIPS only as an additional payment tool, a regional diversification mechanism, and not as a system to replace SWIFT,” reads the statement.