The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has become a testing ground for linking mobile money with stablecoins as Africa explores new ways to scale cross-border digital payments.

Card payments giant Visa, mobile money platform M-Pesa and cross-border payments company Onafriq are piloting a system that settles mobile money top-ups using stablecoins.

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies whose value is pegged to assets such as fiat currencies or precious metals.

Visa says the initiative is designed to bridge local mobile money systems with cross-border payment networks, addressing one of the biggest limitations of mobile money despite its rapid growth across Africa.

According to the GSMA, sub-Saharan Africa processed $1.4 trillion in mobile money transactions in 2025, up 26 percent from 2024. Transaction volumes reached 96 billion, a 16 percent increase over the previous year.

Visa’s Senior Vice-President and Head of Solutions, Godfrey Sullivan, said mobile money had transformed domestic payments across Africa but remained constrained when it came to cross-border transactions.“Mobile money has done a tremendous job and been widely adopted domestically in many markets. However, cross-border remittance challenges are still significant and are yet to be solved. I think stablecoins present an opportunity and will be adopted by banks, fintechs and mobile network operators,” he said.

Sullivan said the DRC pilot was already demonstrating how stablecoins could operate behind the scenes without changing the customer experience.“There is a use case that we have in DR Congo where we are settling M-Pesa mobile money top-ups with stablecoins through a partnership with Onafriq. We have launched a proposition called VisaPay and, as you top up your M-Pesa wallet, the transaction is settled in stablecoins in the background,” he said.

Financial inclusionThe DRC offers a favourable environment for testing new payment technologies. According to Financial Sector Deepening Africa (FSD Africa), only 30 percent of adults have access to formal financial services, compared with 84 percent in Kenya and 76 percent in Tanzania.

The country’s cash-based economy also presents an opportunity to test how quickly new digital payment technologies, including stablecoins, can gain acceptance.

Visa argues that as intra-African trade and regional integration deepen, banks, fintechs and mobile network operators will increasingly need payment infrastructure that reduces the cost and friction of cross-border transactions.“We will see banks, fintechs and mobile network operators adopting stablecoins to solve challenges associated with cross-border payments, remittances and business-to-business payments because existing solutions have not really cracked these problems yet,” Sullivan said.

Mobile money growthAfrica remains the world’s largest mobile money market, accounting for 67 percent of the global value of mobile money transactions and 74 percent of transaction volumes in 2025.

East Africa continues to dominate the sector, contributing 66 percent of transaction volumes and 58 percent of transaction value across the continent.

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