AfricaNenda Foundation and NIBSS push for scalable, inclusive payment systems at stakeholders forum in Lagos
Africa must move beyond building digital infrastructure for a limited elite and instead focus on scalable systems that serve the most vulnerable, including women, youth, and informal workers. Despite rising mobile use, fintech investment, and progress on digital public infrastructure, over 400 million Africans remain financially excluded.
Dr. Robert Ochola, CEO of AfricaNenda Foundation, called this contradiction “not only unsustainable but unacceptable.”
Speaking at the opening plenary of the Peer Learning Visit co-hosted by AfricaNenda Foundation and the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) in Lagos, he urged policymakers to prioritize inclusive, interoperable systems built from the margins inward.
Exclusive: Chpter’s Flutterwave deal opens 11 new markets for WhatsApp-based selling
Chpter, the Kenyan software startup building infrastructure for social commerce, has expanded into 11 more African countries through a deal with fintech company Flutterwave. The new markets are Ghana, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Egypt, Burkina Faso, Malawi and Zambia, expanding its presence in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.
The deal allows Chpter customers to accept payments using mobile money, cards and bank transfers. Merchants in the new countries can collect payments in local currencies or USD. Flutterwave will process and settle the transactions in the background.
Standard Bank First in Africa to Offer Access to China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System
In a first for the continent, Standard Bank Corporate and Investment Banking is the first authorised bank to offer transactions through China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS).
The bank was recently granted license to offer CIPS transactions at this year’s Lujiazui Forum. The Forum was created as a high-level global platform for government officials, world financial leaders and outstanding scholars to discuss and foster international financial cooperation and further the financial reform and market opening in China. eponymous conference held in Shanghai.
Mastercard and enza collaborate to enable fintech innovation across Africa
19 June 2025, Dubai, UAE: Mastercard and enza – a payment solutions company – have collaborated to connect fintech companies across Africa to the Mastercard network. This collaboration will enable fintech players to build propositions on the enza platform that serve both consumers and businesses with embedded Mastercard payment solutions capabilities.
According to a report by the European Investment Bank, the number of fintech companies in Africa has nearly tripled since 2020. Many of these innovators focus on embedding payment services into broader solutions that tackle financial access, offering alternatives to legacy systems that often have a high cost to serve.
Visa and Yellow Card Partner to Expand Stablecoin Payment Solutions in Africa
Yellow Card, a licensed stablecoin payments provider operating across Africa and other emerging markets, has entered into a partnership with Visa.
The collaboration aims to support innovation in cross-border payments and financial infrastructure in regions where Yellow Card is active.
Under the agreement, Yellow Card and Visa will explore use cases for stablecoins, with a focus on streamlining treasury operations, improving liquidity management, and enabling quicker and more cost-efficient cross-border transactions.
Read more: https://fintechnews.africa/45426/fintechafrica/visa-yellow-card-stablecoin-africa/
Visa says every institution that moves money will need a stablecoin strategy
Stablecoin adoption is exploding, with $27 trillion in total transaction volume globally across 1.25 billion transactions in 2024, according to Visa analysis.
Visa says the new initiative will help reduce settlement costs, enhance liquidity management, and support 365-day settlements, including weekends and holidays.
The card scheme has been slowly building itts business in the nascent market. In 2023, Visa became one of the first major payments networks to settle transactions in stablecoin when it piloted enabling clients to fulfill their settlement obligations in USDC. To date, over $225 million in stablecoin volume has been settled through Visa across participating clients.
