The Democratic Republic of Congo has emerged as a live testing ground for one of Africa’s most closely watched payment experiments: linking mobile money with stablecoin settlement.
Visa, M-Pesa and Onafriq are piloting a system in which mobile money wallet top-ups can be settled using stablecoins in the background. The goal is to reduce the friction, cost and delays that still affect cross-border payments across Africa, even as mobile money has transformed domestic transactions.
The pilot comes as Africa remains the world’s largest mobile money region by transaction value and volume, while financial inclusion gaps in markets such as the DRC continue to create space for new digital payment infrastructure.
Key Overview
Visa says the DRC pilot is designed to connect local mobile money systems with wider cross-border payment networks. Under the arrangement, customers can top up their mobile money wallets while settlement happens behind the scenes using stablecoins, according to details of the DRC pilot.
Stablecoins are digital tokens whose value is typically pegged to assets such as fiat currencies. In payments, their appeal is that they can move value faster and more continuously than traditional settlement rails, especially across borders.
The experiment also builds on Visa’s broader stablecoin strategy in Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, where the company has been expanding stablecoin settlement initiatives for cross-border transactions.
DRC Becomes a Test Market for Stablecoin Settlement
The DRC is a strategic market for the pilot because it combines low formal financial inclusion with strong demand for cheaper and faster payment options. According to Financial Sector Deepening Africa, only about 30% of adults in the DRC have access to formal financial services.
That makes the country a useful testing ground for digital finance models that do not require every customer to directly interact with blockchain infrastructure. In the Visa-M-Pesa-Onafriq model, the customer experience remains familiar: a user tops up a mobile money wallet, while stablecoin settlement takes place in the background.
This matters because stablecoin adoption in Africa is unlikely to depend on consumers understanding the technical layer. The stronger use case is infrastructure: banks, fintechs and mobile money operators can use stablecoins to settle transactions faster while still presenting users with ordinary wallet balances and local-currency services.
Mobile Money’s Domestic Success Meets a Cross-Border Gap
Mobile money has already transformed local payments across Africa, but cross-border transactions remain expensive, fragmented and operationally complex. Wallet networks often operate within national systems, while international transfers may still rely on slower correspondent banking or multiple intermediaries.
Visa’s Senior Vice-President and Head of Solutions, Godfrey Sullivan, said mobile money has achieved wide domestic adoption in many African markets but that cross-border remittance challenges remain unresolved. He argued that stablecoins could be adopted by banks, fintechs and mobile network operators to address remittances, business-to-business payments and regional settlement gaps.
Onafriq’s role is also important. The payments company connects businesses to a large African digital payments network and says it provides access to wallet infrastructure across the continent, making it a natural partner for interoperability between mobile wallets and wider payment rails.
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Africa’s Mobile Money Market Keeps Expanding
The timing of the pilot reflects the scale of Africa’s mobile money economy. The GSMA’s 2026 mobile money report shows that global mobile money services processed more than $2 trillion in transactions in 2025, a 23% increase from 2024.
Sub-Saharan Africa remains the sector’s largest engine. According to the raw market figures cited in regional reporting, the region processed about $1.4 trillion in mobile money transactions in 2025, up 26% from 2024, with transaction volumes reaching 96 billion.
Africa accounted for roughly 67% of the global value of mobile money transactions and 74% of global transaction volumes in 2025. East Africa remained the continent’s strongest mobile money corridor, contributing most of the region’s transaction activity and value.
Why Stablecoins Matter for Banks and Fintechs
For banks and fintechs, the attraction of stablecoins is not speculation but settlement. Traditional cross-border payments can be slowed by banking hours, correspondent networks, currency conversion layers and compliance checks across multiple jurisdictions.
Stablecoin rails can potentially support faster settlement, lower liquidity costs and 24/7 movement of value. Visa has previously said its stablecoin settlement work can help reduce settlement costs, improve liquidity management and support weekend and holiday settlement.
However, stablecoins also introduce new risks. Regulators will need to consider consumer protection, anti-money laundering rules, reserve quality, cybersecurity, data privacy and monetary sovereignty. In markets with limited financial literacy, it will be especially important that customers are not exposed to unnecessary crypto volatility or unclear pricing.
Outlook: A New Layer for African Payments
The DRC pilot shows how Africa’s payment sector is moving into a new phase. The first wave of mobile money solved domestic access and everyday transactions. The next wave is about interoperability, regional trade, remittances and business payments.
If the Visa, M-Pesa and Onafriq model works, stablecoins may become part of the invisible infrastructure behind African mobile wallets rather than a product that consumers use directly.
For the DRC, the opportunity is financial inclusion and faster access to digital payments. For Africa’s wider fintech ecosystem, the bigger question is whether stablecoin settlement can help mobile money move beyond national borders and become a stronger engine for continental commerce.
Sources used: The East African / Visa / GSMA / FSD Africa / Onafriq
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