Growing flows of trade and remittances in Africa require the creation of safer, cheaper, and interconnected cross-border payment systems. Mastercard notes that the African cross-border payments landscape is at a critical point of development.
The demand for regional trade and remittances is growing, necessitating closer coordination and strategic cooperation across the entire ecosystem. The goal of this interaction is to connect markets, build trust, and expand access to reliable and efficient digital payment networks.
Africa's digital economy is undergoing significant changes, driven by mobile innovations that have already transformed how millions of people work, save money, and conduct transactions. With increased connectivity, Africa's digital economy is projected to contribute $712 billion by 2050, integrating previously underserved communities into the digital sphere.
Young Africans, who make up over 70 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa's population, are becoming key drivers of this transformation. Their interest in digital tools, global connectivity, and economic opportunities is reshaping trade models and redefining financial inclusion, laying the foundation for an open, connected, and growth-oriented continent.
A clear example of this generation's global reach is the remittance system. As more young Africans seek employment abroad, they maintain economic ties with their home communities, sending funds that support households, aid small businesses, and stabilize local economies. In 2024, the volume of remittances to Africa reached $104 billion, with expectations that this figure will reach record highs.
However, the infrastructure supporting these flows remains expensive, and Africa ranks among the most costly regions for cross-border transfers. According to a World Bank report, the average cost of sending remittances to Africa in mid-2024 was 6.7 percent, more than double the UN Global Goal target of 3 percent.
High transfer fees discourage the use of formal channels, forcing users to resort to informal alternatives such as cash smuggling, unregistered money transfers, and informal currency exchangers operating outside formal financial systems. Although these informal routes are often cheaper and more accessible, they undermine the financial stability that remittances should provide, leaving users outside the system, increasing risks, limiting economic opportunities, and cementing long-term financial isolation.
Solving the problem of Africa's fragmented payment landscape requires collaboration between financial institutions, mobile network operators, regulators, and fintech innovators. Mastercard has built its strategy for Africa precisely on this principle, forging alliances within the financial ecosystem to connect previously isolated systems and establish faster, more reliable payment corridors that suit the diverse realities of the continent's market.
The Mastercard Move service allows for fund movement in over 200 countries and territories, connecting more than 17 billion endpoints and supporting transactions in 150 currencies. A key focus is the partnership with FNB Globba, which enables seamless international payments for South Africans, more effectively integrating the country into the global economy and expanding access to formal financial services. This initiative is part of a deliberate architecture designed to increase the speed, security, and economic efficiency of every transaction.
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are both the most dynamic and the most underutilized economic force on the continent. According to the Mastercard SME Confidence Index for 2025, 90 percent of SMEs in South Africa have adopted digital payments, with the most valued benefits being seamless supplier transactions (89 percent) and faster access to income (72 percent).
However, adoption alone is not enough. The next step is cross-border capability: the ability to conduct international operations with the same speed, security, and economic efficiency as domestic digital payments. This is where the greatest friction persists. Solutions like Mastercard Move directly address this gap, enabling financial institutions to provide fast, secure international payments via mobile platforms with lower costs and greater transparency, removing barriers that prevent SMEs from confidently participating in regional and global trade.
With remittance volumes exceeding $100 billion annually, the commercial and social stakes regarding proper payment execution have never been higher. The way forward lies in creating infrastructure that turns friction into flow, and costs into opportunities. For the youth, entrepreneurs, and communities of Africa, this future is already being built: in seamless payment corridors linking the continent's global diaspora with their families, in transparent and reliable innovations made possible by trusted collaboration, and in the promise that the next generation of Africa offers—a prosperous digital economy worth $1.5 trillion by 2030.