How Stablecoins Are Powering Africa's Payment Revolution

Overview

Across African markets, domestic payment systems can be fast and efficient, but cross-border business payments still create operational pressure for importers, exporters, fintechs, and payment companies. Dollar access, banking delays, FX availability, counterparty risk, and fragmented regulation can turn regional and global settlement into a capital-intensive workflow.

That is why Utila brought together builders working directly across African payment corridors for Episode 04 of the Stablecoin Builder Series. Lauren Buchholz of Utila is joined by Ryan Zega of Aptos Labs, Mouloukou Sanoh of Mansa, Jack Chong of Checker, Paul Joe of Daya, and Jude Anumudu of Web3 Global Conference and Stablecoin Standard to discuss how stablecoins are being used for B2B payments, treasury, FX, settlement, liquidity, and yield in African markets.

Key Takeaways

Africa’s stablecoin adoption is driven by payment utility

The panel framed African stablecoin adoption around operating needs rather than speculative activity. Speakers pointed to cross-border B2B payments, dollar access, treasury preservation, remittances, FX, and import/export flows as core use cases. Domestic rails in markets like Nigeria and Kenya can already be highly efficient, but the pressure appears when businesses need to move funds across borders, pay suppliers, access dollars, or protect working capital from local currency volatility.

Stablecoins help solve settlement, but liquidity still has to be funded

Mansa’s explanation of real-time settlement highlights the central role of liquidity in enabling payments. SWIFT can move messages between banks, but settlement still requires liquidity on the other side of the transaction. Stablecoins can compress settlement time and reduce reliance on correspondent banking chains, but payment companies still need balance sheet capacity, liquidity partners, and licensed local counterparties to complete collections and payouts.

Counterparty risk is a hidden constraint in African payment corridors

Checker emphasized that stablecoin infrastructure does not remove the need for counterparty diligence, especially in corridors where parallel markets, OTC relationships, and local FX providers remain part of the operating environment. Builders also need to understand that the same stablecoin can behave differently depending on which blockchain it’s on can create different pricing, settlement, wallet, and operational requirements. For treasury and operations teams, stablecoin payments require new controls around wallets, KYT, KYC, reconciliation, and execution.

Banks need regulation, risk controls, and integration before stablecoins become core infrastructure

Jude Anumudu argued that stablecoins in Africa have moved from experimentation toward implementation, but broader institutional adoption still depends on regulatory clarity, custody standards, transaction monitoring, operational controls, and interoperability with existing banking systems. Large banks and regulated financial institutions are unlikely to replace their existing infrastructure outright. Stablecoin products need to connect into the payment, settlement, compliance, and core banking workflows they already use.

USD stablecoins will remain dominant, while local stablecoins can grow with better interoperability

The panel largely agreed that USD-backed stablecoins will remain important for savings, hedging, dollar access, and cross-border payments. Local-currency stablecoins may become more relevant for intra-African trade and local transaction flows, but only if they connect cleanly to local banking and payment methods. The practical test of their usefulness is whether a business can move from local fiat, into a local stablecoin, and then into the stablecoin or fiat currency needed for settlement without adding unnecessary friction.

Yield products require regulatory discipline and clear risk design

The audience discussion on yield showed that African fintechs are interested in using idle stablecoin balances more efficiently, but speakers treated yield as a regulated product design question, not a generic add-on. Daya described yield as part of its roadmap, but not something it offers yet because of licensing, security, and local regulatory requirements. Checker highlighted a tension between user skepticism after the crypto bear market and demand for risk-adjusted returns through instruments such as US Treasuries or local government bonds.

Key Speaker Insights

Ryan Zega, Head of Structured Finance, Aptos Labs

“The goal is to create the right integrations and global wallet infrastructure to allow different types of users to access these products. A lot of these products will ultimately use blockchain rails and stablecoin rails for payments.”

Explaining how stablecoin payment rails can support the next layer of financial products, including credit, tokenized assets, and yield infrastructure.

Mouloukou Sanoh, Co-Founder & CEO, Mansa

“Payments is a capital game. If you give me one here, I need to give you one dollar there. If you don’t have the dollar there, there’s no trade that can happen.”

Explaining how real-time settlement depends on liquidity, not only messaging or payment instructions.

Jack Chong, Co-Founder & CEO, checker

“If they just want to apply FX to stablecoins, it’s not going to work. In the FX world, one USD is one USD. But you’re going to have USDT on Aptos, USDT on Tron, USDC on Ethereum. They act almost like different asset classes with different prices.”

Discussing the operational complexity fintechs face when moving between fiat and stablecoins at scale.

Paul Joe, Co-Founder, Daya

“The local payment network, I think the Nigerian interbank connection is much more efficient than even the US wires and ACH. But in Nigeria, when you have to send money outside of the country, that’s where stablecoins are much more efficient.”

Comparing domestic payment performance with cross-border payment constraints in African markets.

Jude Anumudu, Founder of Web3 Global Conference & Ambassador, Stablecoin Standard

“Stablecoin has moved from experimental stage now to implementation stage.”

Responding to what banks and regulated financial institutions need before adopting stablecoins as core infrastructure.