For years, discussions around African finance have focused on financial inclusion and the continent’s large unbanked population. Yet one of the biggest obstacles facing African commerce today is often misunderstood.
The problem is not necessarily that Africans cannot access banking services. Rather, Africa’s financial systems remain fragmented across dozens of currencies, payment networks, and regulatory jurisdictions.
While a bank transfer within Nigeria may take seconds, moving money from Nigeria to Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, or other African markets can still involve multiple intermediaries, foreign exchange conversions, settlement delays, and additional costs.
This challenge has become one of the strongest arguments for stablecoin adoption across the continent.
Fragmented Systems, Not Weak Banking
In a recent interview with Coinafrica, Franklin Peters, CEO of BoundlessPay and Chairman of the Board of the Virtual Asset Service Providers Association (VASPA), argued that Africa’s challenge is often misdiagnosed.
According to Peters, many African countries already possess strong domestic payment infrastructure. Nigeria’s banking system, for example, is among the continent’s most advanced, while East Africa has achieved significant success through mobile money networks such as M-PESA.
The issue emerges when money needs to move between these systems.
“The Nigerian system works for Nigerians, M-PESA works across East Africa, but the challenge comes from the fragmentation of payments across Africa,” Peters explained during the interview.
Unlike Europe, where consumers can move euros seamlessly across multiple countries, African businesses often face barriers when sending payments across borders despite operating within the same continent.
Why Sending Money Within Africa Can Cost More Than Sending It Abroad
One of the paradoxes of African commerce is that it can sometimes be easier to transact with partners in Asia, Europe, or North America than with neighboring African countries.
Historically, businesses seeking to move funds across African markets often needed local banking relationships, regional entities, or multiple settlement partners to process transactions efficiently.
These complexities increased costs and slowed commerce.
The result was a fragmented financial environment that created friction for merchants, freelancers, exporters, importers, and digital businesses operating across borders.
Stablecoins Are Emerging as the Missing Layer
According to Peters, stablecoins are rapidly becoming the infrastructure layer capable of connecting Africa’s fragmented payment systems.
Rather than forcing businesses to navigate dozens of currencies and banking relationships, stablecoins provide a unified settlement asset that can move value across borders almost instantly.
Peters described this evolution as the rise of payment orchestration, where users interact with familiar local currencies while stablecoins handle settlement in the background.
“Blockchain has solved that problem,” Peters said, noting that payment providers can now settle transactions using a single stablecoin wallet while paying out recipients in local currencies.
For users, the experience increasingly resembles a traditional bank transfer rather than a cryptocurrency transaction.
The Future May Be Stablecoins Users Never See
One of the most interesting predictions from Peters is that stablecoins may become invisible to consumers.
While industry discussions often focus on digital assets themselves, Peters believes most Africans will eventually use stablecoin-powered services without realizing it.
“In the next couple of years, people are going to be moving money across Africa with stablecoins, but they won’t know they’re using stablecoins,” he said.
Instead, users will simply send naira, cedis, shillings, or rand, while stablecoins quietly facilitate settlement behind the scenes.
This mirrors how consumers currently use payment cards and banking apps without thinking about the underlying infrastructure that powers transactions.
Commerce Could Be the Biggest Winner
The implications extend beyond remittances.
Cross-border commerce remains one of Africa’s largest untapped opportunities, yet payment friction continues to limit trade between African markets.
Peters highlighted how merchants importing goods from neighboring countries historically faced settlement delays and additional costs. Stablecoin-powered payment networks are reducing these barriers by allowing businesses to send value directly and settle transactions in minutes rather than days.
As stablecoin infrastructure expands, businesses may find it easier to trade with partners across Africa than ever before.
The Real Opportunity
Africa’s cross-border payments challenge has never been solely about banking access.
It is fundamentally a connectivity problem between financial systems.
Stablecoins are increasingly emerging as the bridge linking those systems together.
If current adoption trends continue, the next phase of Africa’s digital finance story may not be defined by speculative crypto trading but by invisible payment rails that make moving money across the continent as simple as sending a text message.
Watch the full interview: Franklin Peters on Stablecoins, Crypto Regulation & Africa’s Financial Future | CoinAfrica Interview
