Africa’s Instant Payments Cross $2 Trillion as Interoperability and Inclusion Deepen
Quidah is an online platform that connects investors with curated opportunities and expert insights on Africa’s emerging markets, while offering businesses promotional services, partnership facilitation, and market intelligence to attract capital and grow their operations.
Industries
Africa’s instant payments landscape crossed a major threshold in 2024, processing nearly 2 trillion dollars across 64 billion transactions as adoption accelerated across 31 countries. With 36 instant payment systems (IPS) now active and five added in the past year, the continent is moving rapidly toward interoperable, low-cost, and participation-driven financial infrastructure.
The 2025 State of Inclusive Instant Payment Systems (SIIPS) Report, published by AfricaNenda in partnership with the World Bank and UNECA, shows IPS evolving well beyond basic P2P transfers. Platforms are increasingly supporting government disbursements, merchant payments, and cross-border flows, creating broader economic utility and reinforcing the region’s digital transformation agenda.
Nigeria’s NIP system stands at the maturity frontier, with 10 other platforms classified as progressing. Adoption among individuals is outpacing merchant uptake, particularly in emerging markets such as Angola, Côte d’Ivoire, Madagascar, and Tunisia. The most active users remain adults over 30 with consistent income streams, while women and younger adults continue to face hurdles linked to fraud fears, onboarding challenges, and limited digital identification.
Interoperability has become a defining driver of growth. Nearly half of Africa’s IPS now link banks, mobile money operators, and fintech ecosystems, supporting seamless transfers and enhancing network effects. Yet expansion risks remain material. Fraud is a major deterrent, with up to 75 percent of cash-first users citing it as a primary concern. Regulatory fragmentation also slows platform integration and cross-border alignment.
The report calls for regulatory harmonization, unified digital identity frameworks, and stronger public-private coordination to enable scalable government payments and cross-border settlement systems aligned with the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) ambitions.
The World Bank urges countries without fast-payment infrastructure to accelerate IPS deployment while encouraging existing operators to deepen inclusion, reduce costs, and invest in innovation. Initiatives like Project FASTT continue to deliver funding, technical support, and capacity-building to strengthen system resilience.
Rising transaction volumes and platform modernization are opening new commercial opportunities in merchant acceptance networks, regional payment switches, alternative-data-driven credit products, and cybersecurity infrastructure. However, execution challenges tied to dispute resolution, data integrity, fraud mitigation, and regulatory inconsistency will determine the durability of current momentum.
Africa’s near-2-trillion-dollar instant payments market now sits at the core of the continent’s digital finance evolution, marking a decisive step toward integrated, inclusive, and scalable financial ecosystems.
