Payments in Africa: What you need to know before entering the market

Over the past 5 years, Africa has become one of the most dynamic growth zones for e-commerce, fintech, and digital services. The region is developing rapidly: smartphone penetration is increasing, the young population is shaping a new digital culture, and international companies are increasingly turning their attention to Lagos, Nairobi, or Kigali instead of Berlin or Paris.

However, there’s a crucial aspect that companies often underestimate at the planning stage: consumer behavior in Africa isn’t just “different” – it often completely contradicts what Western markets are used to. This is especially evident in payment behavior.

According to a Statista report, the transaction value of digital payments in Africa is steadily growing. Analytical projections show expected growth continuing through 2030.

Mobile wallets are not an alternative – they are the foundation

In many African markets, the banking system covers only a portion of the population. At the same time, mobile operators have long played the role of financial intermediaries. For instance, in Kenya, over 80% of the adult population uses M-Pesa as their primary payment method. Similar patterns are observed in Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana, and Zambia.

This means:

🔸 If your checkout doesn’t support a local wallet — users won’t be able to complete a purchase.
🔸 If you offer only card payments — it’s not “less convenient,” it simply doesn’t work.

A market without standards

One of Africa’s biggest challenges is that it’s not a single market.

Different countries have:

• Different mobile wallet providers
• Local regulatory requirements
• Currency restrictions
• Unique payment habits

Doing business in Nigeria means you know nothing yet about South Africa.
Launching in Ghana doesn’t prepare you for Uganda – it’s a completely different story.

There’s no single SDK that “covers Africa.” But you can build an architecture that adapts quickly to any local scenario.

Africa doesn’t have a “universal” payment method. What dominates in Kenya might be barely used in South Africa. But there are clear local leaders – and launching without them makes no sense. Here's a summary of what works in key regions:

M-Pesa (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, partially Egypt)

• Type: Mobile wallet
• Audience: 50+ million users
• Feature: Users can pay online or via USSD/code, without internet or smartphones
• Mandatory for: Entry into East Africa

MTN MoMo (West and Central Africa – Ghana, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, etc.)

• Type: Mobile wallet from MTN operator
• Feature: Very popular among unbanked users
• Plus: Has API for online payments, easily connected via orchestration platforms

Airtel Money (Uganda, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Niger)

• Type: Mobile wallet from Airtel
• Advantage: Strong rural market penetration
• Risk: Infrastructure can be unstable, fallback is critical

Paystack, Flutterwave (Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa)

• Type: Payment gateways with support for local methods
• Use case: Card payments, bank transfers, QR, USSD
• Note: Does not replace mobile wallets, but covers banked segments well

SnapScan, Zapper (South Africa)

• Type: QR payments
• Audience: Urban users, similar in behavior to European customers
• Effective for: E-commerce, delivery, B2C services

Entering a new region always means aligning the product to local behavior — and payments are the first checkpoint.

At Tranzzo, we’ve seen many promising companies fail before their first successful transaction simply because they tried to enter the market with standard payment solutions.

Here are the most common mistakes — and why they’re so costly:

❌ 60–70% of transactions fail

Main reason: lack of local payment methods. If a user only sees a credit card form but uses M-Pesa or MoMo – there’s no conversion. They won’t “try again later.” They’ll just leave.
This isn’t a technical issue, it’s lost revenue.

❌ Customer support becomes a crisis center

Without localization, users start contacting support:

• “Why can’t I pay?”
• “This method doesn’t work for me.”
• “Why is my payment stuck?”

This increases support load, frustrates users, and sends a clear message: “This service isn’t for me.”

❌ Unexpected costs from urgent integration

Once companies realize that card payments aren’t enough, they scramble to find and integrate local providers – often through poor documentation, unsupported APIs, or intermediaries.

This takes weeks or months, and all the while, transactions are lost. These emergency integrations often aren’t scalable: each new country means starting from scratch.

❌ Fragmented or missing analytics

Even when multiple payment channels are integrated, they often aren’t unified.
To find out why a transaction failed, teams must manually check dashboards, logs, and APIs.

As a result:

• No visibility into failure causes
• No real-time reaction
• No performance insights

Without clear analytics, growth is based on guesses, not data.

❌ Lost trust at the market level

In many African countries, reputation is built fast — and nearly impossible to fix.
If a user has issues on their first attempt, they won’t return. Worse — they’ll tell others.

Lost trust in one region isn’t just 10 missed transactions — it’s a long-term block on market growth.

Africa is a market where survival doesn’t go to the “first mover” — it goes to the most adaptable. At Tranzzo, we build infrastructure that doesn’t just process payments — it adapts to complex markets. That’s why our approach to payment orchestration is not just a technical solution, but a business tool for scalable growth.

Want to enter the African market with the right payment architecture?
We know how to do it faster and smarter.

✅ Integration with APM across the region
We’re already connected to key mobile wallet providers. No need for businesses to “search,” “negotiate,” or learn the quirks of every API — we’ve done it.

✅ Automatic routing
If Method X is temporarily down — the transaction doesn’t fail. It’s rerouted automatically. Fallback is essential in Africa — and we implement it from day one.

✅ Single control panel
Payments from 10 countries? 7 providers? 6 currencies? All manageable from our platform.
Analytics, management, configurations — all in one interface. No IT involvement needed from your side.