Selling beyond South Africa
Getting paid across Africa.
The continent is not one market, it is fifty-four, loosely stitched together by a few pan-African platforms. Here is who accepts what, how Africans actually pay, and how the cross-border rails are changing.
The rails
How Africa actually pays.
Cards are a minority rail in most of Africa. The method mix swings hard by country, so design your checkout for the market, not for Johannesburg.
| Rail | Where it dominates | Notes for merchants |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile money | Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, Francophone West Africa | The default mass-market rail: M-Pesa, MTN MoMo, Airtel Money, Wave. |
| Bank transfer / instant | Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt | Account-to-account is huge in Nigeria; open banking is accelerating it. |
| Cards | South Africa, Egypt, urban Nigeria and Kenya | Still key for e-commerce. Verve is Nigeria's domestic scheme. |
| USSD | Nigeria, much of West Africa | Works on feature phones with no internet. Reaches the unbanked. |
| QR | Growing continent-wide | Scan-to-pay via wallets and card schemes. |
| Stablecoins | Cross-border B2B and treasury | Rising where hard currency is scarce. Yellow Card leads. |
Accept payments
Pan-African merchant gateways.
The providers you integrate to collect money across borders. No single one covers the continent cleanly, so pick by target market.
| Provider | Reach | Methods | Indicative fee* | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Flutterwave | ~35 countries | Cards, bank, mobile money, vouchers | ~2.9% + R1 SA; wider by corridor | Broad pan-African acceptance |
 Paystack | NG, GH, KE, SA (+ early access) | Cards, EFT, mobile money, Apple Pay | NG 1.5%+₦100 (cap ₦2k); SA ~2.9%+R1 | Developer-led businesses |
 Cellulant Tingg | ~35 countries | Mobile money, bank, cards, USSD, QR | ~1% MoMo KE, 2% outside, 2.8% cards | One integration, many markets |
 DPO Pay | East & Southern Africa | Cards, EFT, MoMo, scan-to-pay | Quote-based | Travel and multi-market contracts |
 Interswitch | Nigeria-centric | Cards (Verve), switching, bill pay | Quote-based | Deep Nigerian acceptance |
 Yellow Card | 35+ countries | Stablecoins (USDT/USDC/PYUSD), 50+ fiat | API / treasury pricing | B2B cross-border and treasury |
*Directional, ex-VAT and highly corridor-dependent. Confirm per market before relying on a figure.
The wallets your customers hold
Mobile money and consumer giants.
Less "integrate to accept", more the rails your African customers already use. Coverage here decides conversion.
| Provider | Type | Scale | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
 M-Pesa | Mobile money (Safaricom) | ~$292bn / yr, ~37bn txns | Kenya, regional |
 MTN MoMo | Telco wallet | Multi-market | West, Central, Southern Africa |
 OPay | Super-app | ~$3.1bn val, 50M+ users | Nigeria |
 Moniepoint | Agent / POS banking | ~₦412tn in 2025 | Nigeria, entering East Africa |
 PalmPay | Consumer wallet | 90M+ users with OPay | Nigeria |
 Wave | Low-cost mobile money | Fast-growing | Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire |
 Chipper Cash | Consumer P2P | Cross-border transfers | Multiple African markets |
The cross-border layer
Settlement is the hard part.
Transfers between African countries have averaged near 20% in cost, because money routed through dollar correspondents. Two efforts are dismantling that.
PAPSS
- Afreximbank and African Union real-time settlement, launched 2022 to support AfCFTA. Banks settle in local currencies, no dollar correspondent.
- Beneficiaries receive within about 120 seconds. Live in roughly 12 countries, around 15 central banks signed.
- South Africa and the SARB are not yet live on PAPSS, a real gap for SA businesses trading regionally.
Onafriq
- Johannesburg-based, the largest mobile-money interoperability hub: 320M+ wallets across 35+ countries through one API.
- B2B infrastructure for wallet-to-wallet, bank-to-wallet and merchant flows. Formerly MFS Africa.
- 2026: first wallet-based PAPSS pilot (Nigeria to Ghana) and Visa Pay to bridge card and mobile money.
Stablecoins are the fastest-moving rail: Yellow Card (licensed, $6bn+ processed, 35+ countries, USDT/USDC/PYUSD) now settles with both Visa and Mastercard, cutting some cross-border costs by up to 80%. Today it is a B2B, treasury and remittance rail, not a consumer checkout method.
If you are a South African business
Which stack for expanding north.
West and East Africa
- Flutterwave or Paystack for broad card and bank acceptance, plus expansion into markets one does not cover.
Many markets, one build
- Cellulant Tingg exposes local mobile money, bank and cards across roughly 35 countries through a single integration.
Design for mobile money
- Outside SA and urban centres, a card-only checkout converts poorly. Lead with M-Pesa, MTN MoMo or Wave.
Bringing that money home?
Revenue flowing back to a South African entity re-enters exchange control and SARS. The international guide covers the rails and the rules.