Discover how stablecoins are transforming B2B cross-border payments in Africa by reducing costs, improving speed, and liquidity.
The African continent is undergoing a strong digitalization movement. The region is the global epicenter of mobile money, accounting for the majority of worldwide activity. Africa represents over 60% of the global mobile money market, with annual flows exceeding USD 1 trillion.
The payments industry has undergone significant changes in recent years. Today, 26 of the continent’s 54 countries already have access to national-scale domestic instant payment systems, such as Kenya’s M-Pesa and Nigeria’s NIBSS, among others, and this progress continues at a rapid pace.
In recent years, the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) was also launched, currently connecting 19 countries across the continent. The initiative allows transfers between participating countries to be settled directly in local currencies, reducing reliance on the US dollar and on correspondent banks.
These developments bring substantial economic benefits, including greater efficiency in the circulation of funds, lower operational costs, and direct support for financial inclusion.
According to data from Ecofin Agency, in 2023 digital payments added approximately 4.5% to Sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP, and real-time payment systems are expected to further boost economies such as Nigeria and South Africa by more than USD 15 billion by 2028.
Despite these impressive achievements and the important progress made in intra-African trade, many countries across the continent still face major challenges when it comes to cross-border payments.
For this domestic progress to translate into tangible gains in international trade, it is essential to overcome fragmentation between national infrastructures and to build interoperability layers that enable funds to move across borders with the same efficiency seen in local payments.
Cross-border transactions in Africa are among the most challenging financial operations in the world. Although domestic payment systems have evolved significantly, millions of individuals and businesses still face major difficulties when sending money to other countries.
The challenges of cross-border payments in Africa stem from deep structural fragmentation. The continent uses more than 40 national currencies, without a single one to facilitate regional trade. Even between African countries, payments often pass through the US dollar or the euro, adding extra conversion costs.
Each country operates under different financial regulations, licensing regimes, and compliance standards. These differences create friction that further delays processing, especially at the final settlement stage.
Infrastructure also remains a challenge. Limited banking hours, manual processing, and low automation rates slow down settlements. Many systems do not operate at night or on weekends, and payments received outside business hours are delayed until the next business day.
Another major structural challenge for cross-border payments in Africa is the chronic shortage of liquidity, particularly in stronger currencies such as the US dollar and the euro. In more than 70% of African countries, foreign exchange reserve shortages have already been formally declared a crisis or systemic risk, directly impacting the ability of banks and companies to execute international payments predictably.
In many markets, local banks face daily or monthly FX access limits, leading to settlement queues, delays, and, in some cases, outright transaction rejections. Companies that rely on international payments to import inputs, pay suppliers, or execute corporate remittances often need to use multiple intermediaries or alternative channels, further increasing operational costs.
This reliance on the dollar and the euro as intermediary currencies exacerbates the problem. Each additional conversion along a cross-border payment path increases pressure on currency liquidity, creates bottlenecks, and heightens exposure to exchange rate volatility.
Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, is one of the most expensive regions in the world for international remittances. Sending USD 200 to the region costs between 8.4% and 8.78% of the transaction value, well above the global average of 6.4% to 6.49%. These costs run counter to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of reducing remittance fees to below 3% by 2030.
Speed is also a major issue. SWIFT data shows that only 29% of cross-border payments reach the recipient within 60 minutes, compared to 46% globally. Many transfers take days or even weeks to complete, especially when manual checks or multiple intermediaries are involved.
Users face additional frustration due to the lack of transparency in international payment services. Most senders are unable to predict either the settlement time or the total cost of a transaction, as different fees and exchange rates are applied at multiple stages of an opaque payment process.
Studies indicate that customers often stop using certain payment providers primarily due to hidden fees, unclear FX rates, and failed deliveries. Many businesses struggle with financial planning and spend significant time reconciling records.
Countries such as Angola, Kenya, and other African markets have been included, or remain included, on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) gray list. This status requires enhanced AML and CFT due diligence by international financial institutions. While it does not represent formal sanctions, it increases scrutiny over transactions involving these jurisdictions.
In practice, financial operations with gray-listed countries become slower, more expensive, and more complex. Cross-border payments are subject to additional verification layers, face a higher incidence of blocks, and incur extra compliance costs, alongside restricted access to correspondent banking and international liquidity. These factors directly affect businesses and users, reducing predictability and competitiveness in global transactions.
Improving cross-border payments in Africa requires addressing fragmentation at every level, from messaging standards to regulatory frameworks, in order to build a seamless, accessible, and fast payment ecosystem across the continent. In this context, stablecoins emerge as a practical response to the structural bottlenecks of cross-border payments in Africa.
Unlike traditional systems, stablecoins do not rely on long chains of correspondent banks and intermediaries, restricted banking hours, or pre-funded liquidity across multiple currencies. Operating on blockchain infrastructures, they function as a neutral, global, and 24/7-available layer capable of directly connecting economies.
One of the main advantages of stablecoins is their ability to provide access to hard-currency liquidity without requiring US dollars or euros to physically leave a country.
Stablecoins are pegged 1:1 to low-volatility fiat currencies, such as the US dollar and the euro. This allows them to function as a stable digital instrument for international settlement, significantly reducing exposure to exchange rate fluctuations and FX risk. This is especially valuable in economies with high monetary volatility.
In markets facing chronic shortages of foreign exchange reserves, stablecoins enable companies to settle international obligations predictably, even under strict capital controls.
In a B2B context, this translates into more reliable payments to international suppliers, improved cash flow predictability, and reduced need to maintain large balances in offshore accounts. For banks and fintechs, stablecoins act as a liquidity-balancing mechanism, easing pressure on local reserves and mitigating systemic risks associated with FX scarcity.
While traditional cross-border payments can take days or even weeks to settle, stablecoin-based transfers are completed in minutes or seconds, regardless of the day or time. Stablecoin infrastructure can integrate seamlessly with instant payment networks across different regions, enabling a direct, frictionless transaction flow.
In addition, the programmable and transparent nature of blockchains allows full transaction traceability, from origin to final destination. This represents a major improvement over the current model, which is often marked by opacity, hidden fees, and low predictability.
💡Conduit provides near-instant money movement across borders through interoperable fiat and stablecoin rails. Our Payment Tracker tool enables full real-time visibility into the status of cross-border transfers, allowing users to follow each stage of the payment flow, from initiation to final settlement, reducing uncertainty for senders and recipients.
Stablecoins significantly reduce the cost of cross-border payments by eliminating many of the intermediaries present in traditional models. Instead of relying on long correspondent chains with multiple layers of fees and FX spreads, stablecoin transactions follow a more efficient and cost-effective flow.
Contrary to the previous perception that stablecoins operate outside regulatory frameworks, the current reality points to rapid institutionalization. African countries are advancing the creation of clear regulatory frameworks for Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs), aligned with FATF recommendations, including KYC, AML, and the implementation of the Travel Rule.
In this context, stablecoins are becoming part of the regulated financial system, connecting with banks, fintechs, and domestic payment systems. This convergence enables international payments to be executed with the same level of compliance required by global institutions, reducing the impact of the FATF gray list on legitimate transactions.
By acting as an interoperability layer between domestic systems, fiat currencies, and global markets, stablecoins simultaneously address the continent’s key challenges: fragmentation, liquidity shortages, high costs, slow settlement, and lack of transparency.
Rather than replacing existing infrastructures, they complement systems such as M-Pesa, NIBSS, PAPSS, and others, extending their reach beyond national borders. For African companies, this means more efficient access to international trade and growth opportunities. For global partners, it offers a safer, faster, and more predictable way to operate across the continent.
As regulation matures and institutional adoption accelerates, stablecoins are moving beyond experimentation to become a core component of Africa’s new cross-border payment architecture.
In this context, Conduit acts as a strategic infrastructure layer. Our platform enables companies, banks, and fintechs to move funds across more than 15 currencies and to over 100 countries with greater speed, predictability, and operational efficiency.
By connecting stablecoins to local financial rails, Conduit enables B2B payments, treasury management, and international settlements without the complexity, cost, and inefficiencies of legacy systems. For operations that require global scale with control, transparency, and reliable liquidity, Conduit is the infrastructure that turns potential into real execution.
.jpg)
.jpeg)
