Visa, M-PESA, and Onafriq are jointly testing stablecoin payments infrastructure in the Democratic Republic of Congo—marking the first time a major institutional payment processor has partnered with Africa's dominant mobile money operator to deploy cryptocurrency-native settlement in real time. Source: Visa, M-PESA and Onafriq Test Stablecoin Payments in DRC
This is not a press release or a proof-of-concept. The three parties are running a live payments pilot—Visa providing settlement infrastructure, M-PESA offering access to millions of users across East Africa, and Onafriq, a Nairobi-based fintech, serving as the African operational anchor. The partnership breaks a structural barrier: until now, cryptocurrency settlement in Africa has remained isolated from institutional banking and mobile money rails, forcing startups into unregulated channels or cross-border workarounds. M-PESA's participation is the critical shift—the platform processes over $60 billion annually across Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and other markets, and its willingness to experiment with stablecoin settlement signals that Africa's largest mobile money operator sees crypto not as a threat but as a complementary rail.
Why the DRC? The country has positioned itself as Africa's most crypto-friendly jurisdiction, with minimal regulatory barriers and an active digital finance ecosystem. This makes it an ideal testing ground, but also raises a question: will the pilot's success in the DRC translate to Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, or South Africa, where regulators maintain tighter control? The answer matters enormously. If the pilot proves stable and generates user adoption, other central banks and telecom regulators across the continent will face pressure to permit similar integrations. If it faces regulatory resistance or fails to drive transactions, institutional players may retreat, leaving African crypto startups without the banking partnerships they need to scale beyond speculative trading and into commerce.
The structural driver here is clear: African startups have built crypto-native lending, trading, and payment products, but most remain cut off from the payment and settlement infrastructure that would let them serve larger markets. Busha, the Lagos-based crypto lending platform, and others in the space have demonstrated demand—crypto-backed loans grew significantly across Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya in 2025—but without institutional rails, they remain confined to high-touch, high-friction user bases. Source: Why African crypto startups are getting into the lending business The Visa-M-PESA pilot creates a direct pathway: if stablecoin settlements flow through M-PESA's infrastructure, crypto startups can access liquidity, user settlement, and regulatory clarity simultaneously.
The second-order effects will arrive quickly. Other African mobile money operators—Airtel Money in multiple countries, MTN Mobile Money, and Orange Money—will face pressure from investors and regulators to evaluate their own stablecoin strategies. East African regulators, particularly Kenya's central bank, which has resisted crypto adoption, may need to recalibrate if M-PESA's pilot succeeds without systemic risk. And African investors, who have funded crypto startups cautiously, will now have a regulatory template: if Visa and M-PESA are willing to integrate, the compliance threshold may be lower than previously assumed.
But this is not a universal win. Nigerian startups, despite the country's larger fintech ecosystem, face a regulatory environment that remains hostile to direct bank-crypto partnerships—the Central Bank of Nigeria has repeatedly sanctioned crypto-friendly lenders. Rwandan startups may benefit if the pilot's model is replicated regionally. South African operators, bound by stricter securities regulation, may see the DRC as a competitive advantage for regional fintech hubs positioned across the continent.
What to watch: Whether M-PESA or another African mobile money operator announces a full-scale stablecoin integration outside a pilot within the next 12 months—the signal that institutional confidence has shifted from experimental to operational.