Can PAPSS overcome regulatory hurdles to transform intra-African payments?

Cross‑border money that once took three to five days to clear now settles in an average of seven seconds, a claim that landed in Lagos on a bright September morning when Mike Ogbalu III stepped onto the stage of the African Export‑Import Bank’s conference hall. The room was full of central bank officials, fintech executives and a handful of journalists, all listening as the CEO of the Pan‑African Payment and Settlement SystemPAPSSunveiled the network’s latest milestone: a 95 % reduction in transfer costs and a 1,000 % jump in transaction volume over the past year. In that moment, the buzz was not about numbers alone; it was about a continent finally getting a pulse.

The launch of PAPSS in January 2022 marked the first time a single payment network linked 30 African countries, 24 central banks, around 200 financial institutions and more than 16 payment switches. Built by the African Export‑Import Bank in partnership with the African Union and the African Continental Free Trade Area, the system was designed to eliminate the need for every cross‑border transaction to be routed through foreign financial hubs. In practice, this means that a Nigerian import‑exporter can send payment directly to a Ghanaian supplier without the intermediary steps that once dragged the process to days.

The speed of settlementan average of seven secondsfits neatly within the 120‑second guarantee that PAPSS was engineered to meet. The cost savings are even more striking: a 95 % drop in transfer fees, which, for many small and medium‑sized enterprises, translates into the difference between a profitable margin and a loss. The network’s growth is equally impressive. Transaction volumes have surged by more than 1,000 % in the last year alone, a clear sign that businesses are beginning to trust the new infrastructure.

At the heart of PAPSS’s efficiency lies its multilateral net settlement model. Rather than settling each bilateral transaction individually, the system aggregates flows in each direction and settles only the net difference. Mike Ogbalu III illustrated this with a simple example: if $10 million worth of payments were moving into Ghana while $9 million flowed out to Nigeria, only the $1 million difference would be transferred. Depending on the corridor, between 80 % and 90 % of that net balance is settled in local currencies, reducing the need for dollar or euro intermediaries. This mechanism not only speeds up the process but also keeps African currencies in circulation, supporting local economies.

In 2025, PAPSS expanded its offering with the Pan‑African Currency Marketplace (PACM), a collaboration with deep‑tech company Interstellar. The marketplace operates as a virtual trading floor where participants can buy and sell African currencies in real time. By providing a dedicated venue for currency exchange, PACM helps smooth out volatility and offers a more reliable source of liquidity for businesses that rely on multiple currencies for trade.

Watching Mike Ogbalu III explain the net settlement model, I felt the weight of a continent’s collective ambition. It is one thing to talk about reducing costs on paper; it is another to see the architecture that makes it happen. The system’s designrooted in the realities of African trade corridorssuggests that PAPSS is not a generic solution imposed from outside but a homegrown answer to a long‑standing problem.

The journey from infrastructure to widespread usage is still underway. While the network’s technical capabilities are clear, the true test lies in the adoption rates of local banks, fintechs and merchants across the 30 countries. PAPSS’s success will depend on how quickly these stakeholders can integrate the system into their daily operations and how effectively the network can maintain its low‑cost, high‑speed promise amid growing demand. If the momentum continues, PAPSS could very well become the backbone of a new era of intra‑African commerce, turning the continent’s 14.4 % share of total trade into a more vibrant, self‑sustaining economy.