Commercial Bank of China, a Chinese government-owned banking group, has bought 60 percent of South Africa’s Standard Bank London subsidiary for $690 million, according to a report in Yibada.

The partnership will merge Standard Group’s Africa expertise with ICBC’s global and financial reach to the benefit of mutual and prospective clients, according to David Munro, CEO of corporate and investment banking at Standard Bank.

Standard Bank announced the sale Monday of a majority stake in the U.K.-based international commodities and foreign exchange arm of South Africa’s Standard Bank Group. Standard Bank is one of South Africa’s largest banks.

There was a familiar ring to the announcement, TheEconomist reported when the deal was made public in 2014. The state-owned Chinese bank had bought a 20-percent stake in Standard Group in 2007 worth $5.5 billion.

Back then, it seemed a perfect marriage, according to TheEconomist. The trade and investment flow between Africa and China had grown rapidly– mostly because of China’s thirst for Africa’s natural resources. Standard Bank now has a presence in 19 African countries. ICBC was the world’s largest bank by assets and value at the time with millions of corporate clients keen to do business in Standard Bank’s domain. Success seemed assured. But progress has been slow.

This is the first major state-owned Chinese financial institution to set up significant trading operations in London, according to the Financial Times.

Analysts said this acquisition is part of ICBC’s plans to follow its Chinese clients around the world.

Standard Bank, by contrast, has been scaling down its worldwide operations, selling stakes in overseas assets and laying off employees, according to Yibada. In 2011, the bank sold its majority share in Standard Bank Argentina to ICBC for $600 million.

“China and Africa have an increasingly important shared role in the future of the global economy,” Munro said this week, according to Yibada.

The $690-million price tag is about 10 percent less than agreed upon when Standard Bank formally announced the deal in 2014. It’s speculated that the price tag fell partly because of a decline in the subsidiary’s net value, as well as from the South African bank’s exposure after aluminum was impounded at ports in China’s Shandong Province as part of a fraud inquiry by Chinese authorities.

As majority owner, ICBC will have incentive to steer some of its 4.6 million corporate customers to its London outpost, according to TheEconomist. “This will catapult us forward,” Munro said earlier.

London’s hopes of becoming an offshore hub for trading the renminbi may explain why ICBC secured an option to buy a further 20-percent stake in the venture in a few years, TheEconomist reported.

Standard Bank will use proceeds from the sale to extend its reach in Africa, according to TheEconomist.