Pan-African Payment and Settlement System Unveils Revolutionary Platform for Seamless Intra-African Trade

Strategic Insights -

Africa's economy has long been hindered by the inability of its 41 currencies to interoperate freely, forcing businesses to rely on hard foreign currencies for cross-border trade, resulting in estimated transaction costs of $5 billion annually. The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) has unveiled the PAPSS African Currency Marketplace (PACM), a platform set to revolutionize intra-African commerce by creating a single, continent-wide liquidity pool. PACM enables direct, peer-to-peer currency exchanges between African currencies, without routing through external ones, and is built with institutional-grade security and speed.

Key Takeaways:

  • The PAPSS African Currency Marketplace (PACM) is a revolutionary financial market infrastructure that enables seamless intra-African commerce by creating a single, continent-wide liquidity pool.
  • PACM allows direct, peer-to-peer currency exchanges between African currencies, without routing through external ones, and is built with institutional-grade security and speed.
  • The platform was jointly developed with African deep-tech pioneer Interstellar and has already enabled over 80 African companies to trade across 12 currency pairs, with all transactions settled in local currencies.
  • Early adopters describe the platform as 'a dream come true', with Kenya Airways now able to directly exchange revenue earned in Nigerian Naira into Kenyan Shillings without passing through the dollar.
  • Interest in the marketplace is already expanding beyond Africa, with foreign institutions expressing interest in joining the ecosystem, signalling global validation of PACM's potential.
  • The platform promises to remove currency friction, liberate capital, and drastically cut down settlement times-from weeks to mere seconds.
  • PAPSS has enabled real-time payments across 17 African countries, integrating 14 national switches and more than 150 commercial banks since its inception in 2022.
  • The PAPSS African Currency Marketplace is now live and open to eligible corporations, financial institutions, and market participants across the continent, ushering in a new era of trade built on African currencies, African infrastructure, and African ambition.

Statistics:

  • Estimated annual transaction costs due to inability to interoperate freely between African currencies: $5 billion (Source: PAPSS)
  • Number of African currencies that cannot interoperate freely: 41 (Source: PAPSS)
  • Number of companies that have traded on the PAPSS African Currency Marketplace during the pilot phase: 80 (Source: PAPSS)
  • Number of currency pairs traded on the platform during the pilot phase: 12 (Source: PAPSS)
  • Number of transactions settled in local currencies during the pilot phase: 100% (Source: PAPSS)
  • Number of commercial banks integrated with PAPSS: 150+ (Source: PAPSS)
  • Number of national switches integrated with PAPSS: 14 (Source: PAPSS)
  • Number of countries enabled for real-time payments by PAPSS: 17 (Source: PAPSS)

Sources:

  • PAPSS (Pan-African Payment and Settlement System)
  • Interstellar (African deep-tech pioneer)
  • Afreximbank (African Export-Import Bank)
  • ZEP-RE (PTA Reinsurance Company)
  • Access View Africa (financial institution)
  • Haytham El Maayergi, Executive Vice President, Afreximbank