How Africa's Fintech Revolution Is Solving the Trade Payment Problem in 2025

Why Payments Have Always Been Africa's Trade Bottleneck#

Moving money across African borders has historically been extraordinarily expensive and slow. A payment from Nigeria to Kenya — two of Africa's largest economies — traditionally needed to be routed through correspondent banks in the United States or Europe, converted into dollars and back again, incurring exchange costs at each step. Total costs of 5-10% on international transfers were not unusual in many African corridors. This was not merely inconvenient — it was a material trade barrier. An importer buying goods worth $10,000 from another African country could lose $500-1,000 in payment costs before the goods arrived. This cost made small-scale intra-African trade uneconomical and pushed many businesses toward cash-based informal settlement or trade through third-country intermediaries. The legacy correspondent banking system was never designed for the volume, frequency, and small transaction sizes that characterise African trade.

M-Pesa and Mobile Money: The Foundation Layer#

M-Pesa, launched by Safaricom in Kenya in 2007, has become the foundational infrastructure for financial services across East Africa. With over 50 million active users across Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique, and Egypt, M-Pesa processes more transactions annually than several major European banks. The platform has expanded beyond domestic transfers into cross-border payments: M-Pesa users in Kenya can send money to Tanzania, Ethiopia, and several other countries within the M-Pesa network at a fraction of traditional bank transfer costs. For small-scale traders — the hawkers, market traders, and SMEs that represent a large share of intra-African trade — mobile money has already transformed payment accessibility. The next challenge is scaling these systems to handle larger commercial transactions and providing the documentation that formal trade requires.

Flutterwave, Chipper Cash, and the New Trade Finance Fintechs#

Above the mobile money layer, a generation of African fintech companies is building payment infrastructure specifically designed for business-to-business cross-border trade. Flutterwave — founded in 2016 and valued at over $3 billion — provides a payment API that allows businesses to accept and send payments in multiple African currencies, managing the currency conversion and correspondent banking relationships that businesses would otherwise need to manage themselves. Chipper Cash serves both consumer and business cross-border payments across seven African countries with competitive exchange rates and same-day settlement in many corridors. Nala, founded by a Tanzanian entrepreneur, specialises in diaspora remittances and small business payments between the UK and East Africa. These platforms are not just cheaper than traditional banking — they are also faster, more transparent, and increasingly providing the transaction records that trade finance lenders require.

PAPSS: The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System#

The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) is the most ambitious payments infrastructure initiative in African history. Launched by the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) and the African Union in 2021, PAPSS enables real-time payment settlement between African countries in local currencies, without routing through third-country correspondent banks. A payment from a Nigerian naira account to a Rwandan franc account settles in seconds through PAPSS's clearing infrastructure, with Afreximbank guaranteeing settlement. By eliminating the dollar or euro routing, PAPSS dramatically reduces costs and increases speed. The system directly supports the AfCFTA vision of integrated intra-African trade: if African businesses can pay each other as easily as they pay domestic suppliers, the barriers to intra-African commerce fall significantly. As of 2025, PAPSS is operational in several regional economic communities with further roll-out underway.

Practical Implications for UK Businesses Trading With Africa#

For UK businesses with African customers or suppliers, the evolving payment landscape creates both opportunities and operational considerations. On the customer side, African buyers now have more payment options — mobile money, local fintech platforms, and PAPSS — that reduce their payment costs and may make trade with your UK business more economically viable. On the supplier side, paying African suppliers in local currency through fintech platforms rather than traditional wire transfers can be cheaper and faster, strengthening supplier relationships. The documentation challenge remains: formal trade financing, letters of credit, and export credit insurance still require traditional banking documentation that mobile money platforms do not provide. For UK exporters extending credit to African buyers, understanding which payment systems your buyer uses — and whether those systems can generate adequate payment confirmation records — is important for your credit risk management. AskBiz tracks your Africa receivables and payment patterns so you can see which markets are paying reliably and which carry elevated payment risk.

• Africa's trade payment infrastructure has historically been one of the continent's biggest trade barriers: expensive correspondent banking, slow international transfers, and the need to route intra-African payments via New York or London.
• A combination of mobile money scale, specialist fintech platforms, and the new Pan-African Payment and Settlement System is rapidly changing this.