When M-Pesa launched in Kenya in 2007, it was a mobile airtime transfer service with an accidental secondary function: people started using it to move money. Seventeen years later, Africa hosts over 170 active mobile money services, processes over $900 billion in annual transaction volume, and is the uncontested global leader in mobile financial services adoption.
The next frontier is cross-border. And the pace of progress, measured in regulatory approvals, interoperability agreements, and actual transaction volumes, is accelerating rapidly.
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East Africa Leads the Way
The EAC cross-border payment integration project, which links the mobile money systems of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi, has processed over 15 million cross-border transactions since its 2022 launch. A trader in Kampala can now receive payment from a buyer in Nairobi in under 60 seconds, at a fraction of the cost of traditional bank transfer.
The system works through bilateral interoperability agreements between mobile network operators, Safaricom, MTN, Airtel, and others, combined with central bank regulatory frameworks that allow real-time currency conversion at inter-bank rates. Transaction limits remain relatively modest (typically $1,000-5,000 per transaction) but are progressively being raised as confidence in the systems builds.
West Africa's PAPSS: Continental Ambition
The most ambitious cross-border payment initiative on the continent is the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), developed by Afreximbank and launched in January 2022. PAPSS aims to allow any business in any African country to pay any other business in any other African country in local currencies, without routing through the US dollar as an intermediary.
Currently live in 14 countries across West and East Africa, PAPSS handled over $3 billion in transactions in 2023. Full continental coverage is targeted for 2026. If achieved, PAPSS could save African businesses an estimated $5 billion annually in foreign exchange conversion costs alone.
Regulatory Fragmentation Remains the Barrier
The biggest obstacle to continental payment integration is not technology, it is regulation. Each of Africa's 54 countries has its own central bank, its own currency (with exceptions in the franc zone), and its own rules on cross-border capital flows. Harmonising these 54 regulatory regimes is a political as much as a technical challenge.
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