Building Africa’s borderless digital payments economy - IOL

Africa’s growing remittance and trade flows require cheaper, safer and more connected cross-border payment networks.

Africa’s cross-border payments landscape is at a pivotal moment. Demand for remittances and regional trade is growing, requiring closer co-ordination and strategic collaboration across the ecosystem to connect markets, strengthen trust, and expand access to secure, efficient digital payment networks, writes Mastercard

Africa’s digital economy is undergoing a major shift, built on mobile innovations that have already changed how millions of people work, save and transact. These transformations are driven by expanding connectivity, with Africa’s digital economy projected to make a potential contribution of $712-billion by 2050, bringing previously underserved communities into the digital fold.

With more than 70 per cent of sub-Saharan Africa’s population under the age of 30, young Africans are becoming key drivers of this transformation. Their appetite for digital tools, global connectivity and economic opportunity is reshaping trade patterns and redefining financial inclusion, laying the foundation for a continent that is open, connected and built for growth.

One tangible expression of this generation’s global reach is the remittance economy. As more young Africans seek employment opportunities abroad, they maintain economic ties to their home communities – channelling funds that sustain households, support small enterprises and stabilise local economies. In 2024, remittance flows into Africa reached $104-billion, with projections indicating this is set to reach record highs.

Yet the infrastructure supporting these flows remains costly, with Africa listed among the most expensive regions for cross-border transfers. A World Bank report states that the average cost of sending remittances to Africa stood at 6.7 per cent in mid-2024, more than double the UN Sustainable Development Goal target of 3 per cent.

High transfer fees discourage use of formal channels and push users toward informal alternatives, such as hand-carry methods, unregistered money transfers and informal traders who facilitate cross-border currency exchange outside formal financial systems.

While often cheaper and more accessible, these informal pathways erode the financial resilience remittances are meant to build and keep users outside the system, increasing risk, limiting economic opportunities and reinforcing long-term financial exclusion.

Addressing Africa’s fragmented payment landscape demands collaboration across financial institutions, mobile operators, regulators and fintech innovators. Mastercard built its Africa strategy around this principle, forging alliances across the financial ecosystem to connect previously siloed systems and create faster, more reliable payment corridors better suited to the continent’s diverse market realities.

Mastercard Move enables money movement across more than 200 countries and territories, connecting more than 17 billion endpoints and supporting transactions in 150 currencies. A key initiative is the collaboration with FNB Globba, which enables seamless international payments for South Africans, integrating the country more efficiently into the global economy and expanding access to formal financial services.

This initiative forms part of a deliberate architecture designed to bring greater speed, security and cost-efficiency to every transaction.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) represent both the continent’s most dynamic economic force and its most underleveraged one.

According to the Mastercard 2025 SME Confidence Index, 90 per cent of SMEs in South Africa have adopted digital payments, with seamless supplier transactions (89 per cent) and faster access to revenue (72 per cent) emerging as the most valued benefits. Yet adoption alone is not enough.

The next frontier is cross-border capability: the ability to transact internationally with the same speed, security and cost efficiency domestic that digital payments now offer. This is where friction remains most acute.

Solutions like Mastercard Move address this gap directly, enabling financial institutions to provide fast, secure international payments through mobile platforms at lower costs and with greater transparency, removing the barriers that constrain SMEs from engaging confidently in regional and global trade.

With remittance volumes surpassing $100-billion annually, the commercial and social stakes of getting payments right have never been higher. The path forward lies in building infrastructure that turns friction into flow, and cost into opportunity.

For Africa’s youth, entrepreneurs and communities, that future is already being built – in the seamless payment corridors that connect the continent’s global diaspora to their families, in the transparent, reliable innovations made possible through trusted collaborations, and in the promise that Africa’s next generation holds to power a thriving $1.5-trillion digital economy by 2030.