In February 2026, Kenya's instant payment network Pesalink officially joined the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS). What this means in practice: over 160 commercial banks and fintech companies across Africa can now send cross-border payments directly to any bank or mobile money operator connected to Pesalink, 24 hours a day, settled in local currencies. No US dollars. No Euro intermediaries. No correspondent banking chains. Before this, cross-border remittances in Africa cost an average of 7 to 8% of the transfer amount, with settlement taking anywhere from 3 to 7 business days. This deal signals a real shift in Africa's payment infrastructure.
For cross-border sellers, this matters. African consumers don't all pay the same way, and the gap between regions is significant. Getting your payment setup wrong is one of the fastest ways to lose an order you already earned. If you're entering the African market, or already selling there, here's what you need to know about how your customers actually pay.
Africa's most popular online shopping categories include electronics, fashion, personal care and beauty, food and beverages, and travel bookings. For cross-border sellers running their own DTC ecommerce websites, phone accessories, clothing, accessories, and everyday household items are solid entry points with steady demand and reasonable repeat purchase rates.
The overall market is growing fast. Africa's ecommerce revenue is projected to reach around $40.49 billion in 2025, growing at an annual rate of 8.46%, and expected to hit $56.03 billion by 2029.
Mobile is the dominant channel. By 2025, mobile devices are expected to account for 60% of all ecommerce transactions in Africa, with the total number of online shoppers projected to reach 518 million. Africa already processes 74% of the world's mobile payment transactions, with a total transaction value of $1.1 trillion in 2024 and over 1.1 billion registered accounts. Mobile payments here aren't a trend. They're infrastructure.
That said, Africa is not a single market. Digital payment adoption looks very different depending on where you're selling. East Africa leads the continent: 75.8% of Kenyan adults made a digital payment in the past year, and South Africa follows at 70.5%. Northern Africa sits at the other end of the spectrum, with countries like Egypt at under 10% digital payment participation among adults. These differences directly shape which payment methods you should prioritize for each market.
So, what do African consumers actually use when they shop online? Here's a breakdown of the most widely used payment methods across the continent.
Mobile money is the most distinctive payment method in Africa, and the one cross-border sellers most often overlook. Think of it like a digital wallet tied to a phone number, similar to WeChat Pay or Alipay in China, or Apple Pay in Western markets. Users can transfer money, pay for goods, and top up services directly from their phones. The key difference is that African mobile money doesn't require a bank account or a smartphone. With a basic feature phone, users can complete a payment by dialing a USSD shortcode, similar to making a phone call. That's what made mobile money take off in a region where formal banking coverage is still limited.
In 2024, USSD-based transactions accounted for 63.5% of total mobile money transaction volume in Africa. In countries like Niger and Malawi where smartphone penetration remains low, USSD is essentially the primary financial interface for most people. Peer-to-peer transfers make up 52.5% of total transaction volume, making them the single most common use case.
Here are the four major mobile money platforms operating across the continent:
| Platform | Coverage | Scale |
| M-Pesa | Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, DRC, Egypt | Over 66.2 million customers as of FY2024 (Statista) |
| MTN MoMo | 20+ African countries | 63 million monthly active users, $321.3B in transactions in 2024 (Fintechnews) |
| Airtel Money | 14 African countries | 44 million users, $136.5B transaction volume in FY2025 (Fintechnews) |
| Orange Money | West Africa, French-speaking markets | ~40 million users, over $190B in transactions in 2024 (Substack) |
Together, these four platforms serve well over 200 million users. If you're selling into Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, or Côte d'Ivoire, supporting the dominant mobile money platform in that market is one of the most direct ways to improve payment conversion.
Beyond mobile money, most African countries have built their own real-time payment networks for consumers who do have bank accounts. These systems vary by country, but they serve a similar function: low-cost domestic transfers without going through international rails.
Cards are more common in South Africa, Egypt, and parts of North Africa, but penetration remains low across most of sub-Saharan Africa. The overall card adoption rate on the continent is still growing slowly, with mobile payment solutions filling much of the gap.
Visa and Mastercard are the dominant international card brands. Nigeria also has its own local card network, Verve, with over 35 million active cards in circulation. Verve works with Visa, Mastercard, and UnionPay, and is accepted in over 185 countries.
If your ecommerce store runs on Shoplazza Payments, Visa and Mastercard are already included in the integration. If you only want to add one or two specific card options, you can search and activate them individually under Payments in your Shoplazza admin.
COD is still a significant payment method in several African markets, particularly in Morocco, Nigeria, Kenya, and Egypt, where cash continues to play a major role in both online and offline transactions. The reason is straightforward: many consumers don't fully trust paying online upfront. They'd rather inspect the product first and pay when it arrives.
Shoplazza supports COD as a payment option, which you can enable directly in your store settings. For sellers on the Pro plan, there's also the COD Risk Control app. The moment a buyer places a COD order, the system automatically runs a risk check based on rules you configure in advance. You can set up blocklists and allowlists, cap the maximum order value eligible for COD, limit how frequently the same customer can place COD orders, and control how much inventory a single COD order can hold. Any order that doesn't pass the check gets redirected to another payment method automatically, which cuts down on empty deliveries and manual order reviews.
Shoplazza also offers a one-page checkout layout, which combines the product page and checkout into a single screen. It's a good fit for COD markets, where a simpler, faster checkout process tends to improve order completion rates.
BNPL has grown faster in Africa than most people expected, and the reason isn't hard to see. Africa has one of the youngest consumer populations in the world. A lot of young people want to buy, but paying the full amount upfront is a real barrier when savings are limited. BNPL lets them get the product immediately and pay in installments, which makes the decision much easier. South Africa and Nigeria are currently the most active BNPL markets on the continent. South Africa has a relatively mature credit infrastructure to support it, while Nigeria brings a massive base of young urban consumers who are already comfortable with digital financial tools.
For sellers, if your product is priced above $30 to $50, that's already a threshold where many African consumers start to hesitate. Offering a BNPL option at that price point can noticeably shorten the time between adding to cart and completing the purchase.
Separate from mobile money, some African markets have seen strong growth in app-based digital wallets, usually tied to ecommerce platforms or fintech companies.
Africa's payment landscape is moving toward local currency settlement, real-time infrastructure, and mobile-first access. Pesalink joining PAPSS is one example of that shift, not an isolated event. The structural problems of high remittance costs and slow settlement times are gradually being addressed at the infrastructure level.
For sellers, the practical takeaway is to configure payment methods by region rather than applying a one-size-fits-all setup:
Getting the payment setup wrong is one of the most common reasons cross-border sellers lose orders in Africa that were already within reach. Shoplazza lets you filter payment providers by country, payment method, and payment processor directly in the admin. Providers like Payssion and dLocal are already listed there, so you can activate what you need for each target market without a complex integration process. Once your payment configuration matches what your customers actually use, you're genuinely ready to sell in Africa.
Mobile money is the most widely used payment method across Africa. Key platforms include M-Pesa, MTN MoMo, Airtel Money, and Orange Money. These services don't require a bank account and work on basic feature phones via USSD, which is why they've reached hundreds of millions of users in markets where traditional banking infrastructure is limited. Credit cards and debit cards are more common in South Africa and North Africa, while cash on delivery remains significant in markets like Morocco, Nigeria, and Egypt.
In your Shoplazza admin, go to Settings, then Payments, and use the filters to search by country, payment method, or payment provider. Payssion supports Egypt's InstaPay, Nigerian bank cards, and South Africa's online banking and credit card payments. Shoplazza Payments covers Visa and Mastercard. You can activate each provider based on your target market.
Yes, particularly in Morocco, Nigeria, Kenya, and Egypt. Many consumers in these markets prefer to pay after receiving and inspecting their order, largely due to lower trust in upfront online payments. Offering COD can expand your potential customer base, but it does come with risks like order rejection and higher logistics costs. Shoplazza's COD Risk Control app helps manage these risks automatically.
In most African markets, products priced at $30 to $50 and above are where consumers start to weigh the cost more carefully. At this price point, offering a buy now, pay later option can reduce purchase hesitation and improve conversion, especially in South Africa and Nigeria where BNPL adoption is most developed.
PAPSS allows financial institutions across Africa to settle transactions in local currencies without routing through US dollars or euros. For consumers, this means lower remittance costs and faster settlement times as more countries join the system. For sellers, the practical benefit is a gradual improvement in payment reliability and speed across African markets, which should reduce failed transactions and settlement delays over time.