Africa has built one of the world’s most diverse digital payment ecosystems, but the systems powering it do not always connect easily. Mobile money wallets, bank accounts, cards and payment networks often operate across separate platforms and regulatory environments, making it harder for businesses and individuals to move money across borders.
That fragmentation has created a large infrastructure problem for African fintech. A company that wants to send money across several African countries may need to connect to different banks, mobile money operators and payment systems in each market, while also dealing with different currencies, regulations and settlement processes.
Onafriq has spent the past 15 years building around this problem. The company’s network now connects nearly 1 billion mobile wallets, 500 million bank accounts and more than 2,000 cross-border payment corridors across 43 African markets, turning what started as a mobile-money interoperability business into a broader payments infrastructure company.
From MFS Africa to Onafriq
The company was founded in 2009 by Dare Okoudjou, initially under the name MFS Africa. Its early focus was mobile-money interoperability: connecting different mobile financial services so users could move money between systems that otherwise operated independently.
This was important because mobile money was developing rapidly across Africa, but the growth was fragmented. A customer using one mobile network could not always easily send money to someone using another network or operating in another country.
MFS Africa built infrastructure to connect these systems. Instead of asking each mobile-money operator to build individual connections with every other provider, the company positioned itself as an intermediary that could connect multiple systems through one network.
The strategy expanded as the African digital-finance market matured. The company moved beyond mobile money to support bank accounts, cards, merchants, remittance companies and other payment channels.
In November 2023, MFS Africa officially rebranded as Onafriq. The company said the name reflected its expansion beyond mobile financial services and its ambition to build what it calls a “network of networks” across Africa.
The rebrand also followed a period of significant expansion and acquisitions, including the acquisition of GTP, which gave the company greater access to the US market.
The problem Onafriq is solving
Cross-border payments in Africa are complicated partly because there is no single payment system covering the continent.
A business operating in Nigeria may need one banking connection for local payments, a mobile-money connection for another market and a separate arrangement for card payments. Add different currencies, licensing requirements and settlement processes, and expanding across Africa can become expensive and technically difficult.
Onafriq’s model is designed to hide some of that complexity from its customers. Businesses can integrate with Onafriq and use its network to reach different payment channels instead of building separate connections to every provider themselves.
The company describes this as a “network of networks.” Its infrastructure connects mobile wallets, bank accounts, cards, agents and other payment channels, allowing businesses to use different methods for collecting or sending money.
This makes Onafriq less like a consumer wallet and more like infrastructure sitting underneath other financial products.
How the network works
Onafriq’s customers include banks, mobile network operators, money transfer organisations, fintech companies, enterprises and development organisations.
A remittance company, for example, can use Onafriq’s infrastructure to send money to recipients through bank accounts or mobile wallets. A global business can also use the network to make payments to customers or workers in different African markets without building a separate payment integration for each country.
The company offers collections, disbursements, card issuing and processing, agent banking and treasury services. Its current platform also provides access to multiple currencies through its banking network.
The value proposition is therefore largely about connectivity. Onafriq does not need to replace every payment system in Africa; it needs to connect enough of them that businesses can access multiple markets through a smaller number of integrations.
The scale of the network
In 2025, as the company marked its 15th anniversary, it reported that its infrastructure connected 961 million registered mobile wallets and 464 million registered bank accounts, with more than 2,000 cross-border payment corridors.
Its current website rounds those figures up to 1 billion connected mobile wallets and 500 million bank accounts across 43 African markets. It also says its Nigerian agent-banking business, Baxi, has more than 460,000 agents.
These numbers describe the accounts and wallets accessible through Onafriq’s network, rather than meaning that Onafriq directly owns or operates all of them. That distinction matters when assessing the company’s actual reach.
Still, the scale illustrates the strategy. Onafriq is trying to become an infrastructure layer through which other financial companies can reach a large portion of Africa’s existing digital-payment ecosystem.
Baxi brought the company closer to everyday payments
One of the most important acquisitions in Onafriq’s history was Baxi, a Nigerian fintech that operates an agent network.
Baxi gives Onafriq a physical distribution layer in addition to its digital payment infrastructure. The business allows agents to provide services such as cash-in and cash-out, bill payments and other financial transactions to customers who may not have direct access to formal banking services.
Onafriq says Baxi now has more than 460,000 agents across Nigeria.
The acquisition was strategically important because Africa’s payment ecosystem is not entirely digital. Millions of people and businesses still depend on agents and cash-based channels, particularly for last-mile financial services.
By combining digital payment infrastructure with an agent network, Onafriq can support transactions across both online and offline environments.
The company has been expanding beyond payments
Onafriq’s evolution has also involved moving further into financial infrastructure.
Its treasury services help businesses manage payments across different currencies and markets. Instead of requiring a company to establish a large network of correspondent banking relationships itself, Onafriq says businesses can use its banking network to access multiple currencies.
The company also provides card issuance and processing infrastructure. Banks and fintechs can use the platform to launch physical or virtual prepaid cards that can be used internationally. This broadening is important because it changes the company from a specialised mobile-money connector into a broader financial infrastructure provider.
The PAPSS connection
Onafriq has also been working with the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), an initiative designed to make cross-border African payments easier and allow transactions to be settled using local currencies.
One of the company’s projects with PAPSS involved Ghana. Onafriq said its pilot with PAPSS and the Bank of Ghana enabled wallet-to-bank and wallet payments between Ghana and Nigeria.
This is closely aligned with the wider push to reduce dependence on foreign currencies for intra-African trade.
The problem is not simply sending money from one country to another. Businesses also need payment systems that can deal with different currencies, settlement rules and regulatory requirements without making every transaction dependent on an international banking route.
Onafriq’s infrastructure can play a role in that process by connecting existing local payment channels to broader cross-border networks.
Bringing stablecoins into the network
In 2025, the company announced a partnership with Circle to pilot USDC-powered settlement solutions within its payments network. The partnership was designed to explore how stablecoins could be used to support cross-border payments and remittances across Onafriq’s African network. Stablecoins represent an additional settlement rail rather than the foundation of the company’s original business.
The opportunity is that USDC can allow institutions to move value between different markets without depending entirely on traditional correspondent banking systems. Onafriq’s existing local payment connections can then provide the final connection to the recipient.
The company has said that, where regulation permits, its network can support stablecoin management, prefunding, settlement and on- and off-ramps.
That regulatory qualification is important. Stablecoin-based payment infrastructure is still developing, and the ability to use such systems depends on the rules governing digital assets and payments in each market.
The $200 million funding round
When the company was still operating as MFS Africa, it raised an additional $100 million in equity and debt in 2022, taking its Series C financing to $200 million. Admaius Capital Partners led the additional round, with existing investors AfricInvest and CommerzVentures participating alongside new investors including Vitruvian Partners and AXA Investment Managers.
The financing was intended to support expansion across Africa, strengthen the company’s global payments connections, expand into Asia and support Baxi’s growth.
The size of the round was also a signal of the investors’ view of payment infrastructure as a long-term opportunity. Rather than building a single consumer-facing financial product, MFS Africa was trying to establish infrastructure that other financial companies could build on.
That infrastructure-first strategy has remained visible under the Onafriq brand.
Why the model matters for African fintech
One of the biggest problems with expanding a fintech across Africa is that success in one country does not automatically translate into success in another.
A payment company that works well in Nigeria may still need separate integrations to operate in Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania or Côte d’Ivoire. Each market has its own financial institutions, mobile-money operators, regulators and consumer behaviour.
Onafriq’s network model is designed to reduce that duplication. A fintech can connect to Onafriq once and gain access to multiple payment channels across different countries. The company handles much of the infrastructure and connectivity required behind the scenes.
This can make expansion faster for businesses that would otherwise have to negotiate and maintain dozens of individual relationships.
Its latest expansion
In June 2026, it partnered with Yuno, a global payment-orchestration company, to give international merchants access to Onafriq’s African payment network through a single integration. The partnership covers 43 African markets and gives Yuno’s customers access to Onafriq’s network of mobile wallets, bank accounts and cross-border corridors.
Onafriq is not only trying to help African companies move money across the continent. It also wants global companies to use its infrastructure when they enter African markets. That creates a two-way model: African businesses can connect to international markets, while international businesses can connect to African consumers and payment systems.
The challenge of building one network across many markets
The scale of Onafriq’s ambition also creates one of its biggest challenges.
Africa does not have one regulatory system, one currency or one payment architecture. Each market has its own licensing requirements, financial institutions and rules governing cross-border transactions.
Maintaining interoperability across 43 markets therefore requires more than technology. It requires regulatory relationships, banking partnerships, compliance systems and local knowledge.
Onafriq itself highlights regulatory and compliance capabilities as part of its infrastructure. Its current network operates through local licences and partnerships across the markets it serves.
There is also competition. Payment infrastructure companies across Africa are trying to solve similar problems, while banks and mobile network operators continue to build their own cross-border capabilities.
Onafriq’s advantage will depend on whether its network remains sufficiently broad and useful for businesses to prefer one integration over multiple direct connections.
The stablecoin question
USDC and other stablecoins can make settlement faster and potentially reduce some of the friction associated with moving money across borders. But their use depends heavily on regulation, liquidity and the ability to convert digital assets into local currency at the destination.
For Onafriq, this means stablecoins cannot replace its existing payment infrastructure. They need to work alongside banks, mobile wallets, local currencies and regulatory systems.
The company’s partnership with Circle suggests it sees stablecoins as another tool within its network rather than a complete replacement for traditional financial rails.
That approach may be important in Africa, where digital assets are developing alongside, rather than completely replacing, mobile money and banking.
What comes next for Onafriq
The business has moved from connecting mobile-money wallets to connecting multiple forms of financial infrastructure. Its network now covers payments, collections, cards, agency banking, treasury services and, where permitted, stablecoin settlement.
The next challenge is making that infrastructure even more useful to businesses operating across borders.
Partnerships with companies such as Yuno show that Onafriq wants to become the connection point between global businesses and Africa’s fragmented payment systems. Its work with PAPSS and Circle also shows two different approaches to the same problem: making cross-border settlement easier.
The company is therefore competing on infrastructure rather than on a single consumer product. If it succeeds, customers may rarely interact with the Onafriq brand directly. Instead, they will encounter its infrastructure through a fintech, bank, remittance company, merchant or payment platform using the network behind the scenes.
Onafriq’s place in Africa’s payment economy
It began with a simple problem: mobile-money systems were growing quickly but were not sufficiently connected. Over 15 years, the company expanded that idea into a wider infrastructure network connecting wallets, bank accounts, cards, agents and cross-border payment systems.
Its rebrand from MFS Africa to Onafriq reflected that evolution. The company was no longer only connecting mobile financial services; it was trying to build a broader network through which different financial systems could communicate.
The company’s reported scale, nearly 1 billion mobile wallets, 500 million bank accounts and more than 2,000 cross-border corridors, shows how far that strategy has developed. Those figures remain company-reported, but they provide a useful picture of the infrastructure Onafriq has assembled.
The bigger test is whether that network can continue to grow while keeping transactions reliable, compliant and commercially competitive.
Africa does not need another payment app simply for the sake of having one. It needs infrastructure that allows the payment systems it already has to work better together.
That is the market Onafriq has spent 15 years trying to build around, and its next chapter will depend on how effectively it can connect traditional payment rails, local financial institutions and emerging technologies such as stablecoins into one usable network.