PAPSS, the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System run by Afreximbank, said in July 2026 that it links 28 African countries, more than 190 banks and fintechs and 16 payment switches (later statements cite higher counts, such as more than 30 countries), but that number counts institutions that have joined or signed, not routes your own bank can use today. For a company paying a supplier in Nairobi or collecting from a client in Lagos, the useful question is narrower: are both banks live on this corridor, in these currencies, for this type of payment?
This is general information, not financial or legal advice. Status changes monthly, and everything below is dated 23 October 2026.
Key takeaways
- Membership is not coverage. PAPSS's own July 2026 figures (28 countries, 190+ banks and fintechs, 16 switches) describe who has joined. A March 2025 analysis separated banks that had connected from the 12 countries where commercial banks were live.
- Kenya and Central Africa are in the build-out phase. The Pesalink link (February 2026) and the BEAC membership (July 2026) are announcements of access. PAPSS says it will work with BEAC through the end of 2026 to bring banks on.
- West Africa and Ethiopia are still pilots or pending approvals. The BCEAO pilot has no stated start date, and Ethiopian wallets need a National Bank of Ethiopia letter of no objection.
- Ask your bank for the corridor, not the brand. Named bank, named counterparty bank, currency pair, payment type, and who holds the pre-funded liquidity.
What the network actually is
PAPSS is a messaging, validation and settlement layer. A payer's bank sends an instruction through PAPSS, which runs sanctions and anti-money-laundering checks and forwards it to the beneficiary's bank, which credits the recipient in local currency. PAPSS describes the flow as launched in Accra on 13 January 2022, with an instant payment system, a currency marketplace and a card product.
It is not a bank account and you do not sign up as a company. You use it through a participating bank, payment service provider or, increasingly, a national switch that connects its members in one go. Early descriptions of the settlement design, from a March 2023 report on Ghana's first transaction, say direct participants pre-fund through their central bank's real-time gross settlement system and net positions settle every 24 hours. That detail is three years old and not restated in the 2026 releases, so ask a current participant bank how it works now.
Status by corridor
| Link | What was announced | Source status | What is not confirmed | |---|---|---|---| | Kenya, Pesalink | 80+ Kenyan banks, fintechs, SACCOs and telcos on Pesalink to connect to 160+ commercial banks and fintechs on PAPSS; Pesalink acts as a technical connectivity provider (26 Feb 2026) | PAPSS press release | Go-live date by institution, fees, limits: the release states none | | Central Africa, BEAC | The central bank of six CEMAC countries joined PAPSS (release dated 8 July 2026) | PAPSS press release | Which CEMAC banks are live: PAPSS says it will work with BEAC through end-2026 to integrate them | | West Africa, BCEAO | A six-month pilot with 80+ banks in the eight WAEMU countries; BCEAO an observer checking compliance with WAEMU rules (reported 21 July 2026) | Ecofin Agency | Start date; agreements were still being finalised | | Ethiopia | Non-bank wallets "set to link"; central bank letter of no objection needed first (4 Oct 2026); the National Bank of Ethiopia itself joined (reported 16 Oct 2026) | Capital Ethiopia; Central Banking | Whether any wallet has received the letter | | Ghana and Nigeria | Bank of Ghana approved a six-month wallet pilot in June 2025; a Nigeria-to-Ghana naira wallet pilot was announced 2 Feb 2026; Ghana's governor said on 13 Oct 2026 PAPSS was extended to wallets on that corridor | Starr FM; Onafriq; Ghana News Agency | Volumes, and whether the pilots have ended or been made permanent |
Two details complicate the neat picture. The Onafriq release is dated 2 February 2026 but says the service runs for six months "from the 1st of December", with no year, so the start date cannot be read from the page. And the governor's October statement describes tests of "CBDCs, stablecoins, bank accounts and mobile wallets" on the Ghana-Nigeria and Ghana-Rwanda routes, with the stated goal of moving pilots to live services. That is intent, not a launch.
Connected, live, and used
The best evidence that these are different things is a March 2025 analysis by FXC Intelligence. Using PAPSS's January 2025 list, it counted commercial banks live in 12 countries, with four more onboarding, while a separate figure from May 2024 had 115+ banks "connected". Different measures, the analysis noted, not a contradiction. Kenya's KCB Group and Rwanda's Bank of Kigali went live only in early March 2025.
Usage data is thin. The only absolute volume figure we could find is second-hand: a Nigerian newspaper report on the Central Bank of Nigeria's annual report says Nigerian participants settled US$143.40 million on PAPSS across 44,088 transactions in the latest year, against US$29.23 million across 17,808 in the year before. The article labels both years inconsistently, and we could not open the CBN report, so treat it as reported, single-source. PAPSS itself said in September 2026, in a briefing reported by TechTrends Kenya, that network volumes had grown by about 1,000% and values by about 120%, with no absolute totals given, so treat that as the network's own claim. For scale, the same Nigerian participants' figure is small beside the continent's domestic instant-payment flows, which AfricaNenda's 2025 survey, as reported by Ecofin, put at US$1.98 trillion in 2024 across 36 operational systems. Those two numbers measure different things and should not be divided into each other.
The same AfricaNenda coverage says 11 of those systems support cross-border payments and that three are regional: PAPSS, GIMACPAY (Central Africa) and TCIB (Southern Africa). PAPSS is one of several rails, not the only one.
Where the gaps are
Bank-to-bank only, until recently. Ghana's governor said in October that PAPSS had been mostly bank-to-bank, which excluded people and small traders who use mobile money. Wallet links are the 2026 story, and they are the least finished part.
Regulatory conditions travel with the payment. Nigeria's July 2023 circular required PAPSS payments to be trade-backed, limited the eligible payment mode to bills for collection, capped customers at US$20,000 and each authorised dealer bank at US$200,000 per quarter, and required central bank approval of USD cover. Law-firm coverage reports that the central bank lifted the quarterly caps in March 2024, and a CBN circular of 28 April 2025 relaxed documentation for smaller payments: individuals up to US$2,000 a month and corporates up to US$5,000 a month on basic KYC, according to a Mondaq client update. We could not open the circulars themselves. Check the current CBN circular position with your bank, because a payment can be technically routable and still refused for documentation.
Approvals gate the new participants. In Ethiopia the letter of no objection exists to check monetary policy, foreign-exchange rules and anti-money-laundering standards. Wallets such as Telebirr (which Capital reports at 60 million-plus subscribers) are the obvious prize, and the route may run through EthSwitch, directly, or through banks. None of that is decided publicly.
Cost claims are the network's own. The Pesalink release cites the 2023 World Bank figure of 7 to 8 per cent average cost for sending money across African borders, and Capital Ethiopia relays PAPSS's claim of 92 to 95 per cent lower transaction costs. The second is a vendor claim. we found no independent price comparison for a business payment.
A worked example (hypothetical)
A Nairobi software firm invoices a Lagos client in naira-equivalent. Before 2026 the usual path is a dollar correspondent chain. Now ask four things. Is the client's Nigerian bank a PAPSS participant, or linked to one? Is the Kenyan firm's bank on Pesalink and has it switched on the PAPSS terminus? Is the payment trade-backed with the invoice and contract the Nigerian bank will want? What is the exchange rate source, and who bears the conversion spread between shilling and naira? If any answer is "we will check", the dollar route is still the safe default for this invoice.
Our reading: PAPSS is turning from a bank project into a switch-and-wallet network faster than its public status reporting is. The strongest counterargument is that one integration can move coverage a long way. Pesalink alone puts 80-plus Kenyan institutions behind a single connection. If the BCEAO pilot becomes a full membership, eight more countries follow similarly. The risk is that announcements are read as capacity.
Buyer guidance
- Ask your bank for the corridor list in writing: named originating bank, named beneficiary bank, currency pair, maximum amount, payment types accepted, and whether the route is live, pilot or planned.
- Test with a small, documented payment before moving a client contract onto the route, and keep the dollar route open for the first quarters.
- Prepare trade documents (invoice, contract, evidence of delivery) as if for an export proceeds check. Nigeria's 2023 circular asked for this, and banks may still ask above the simplified thresholds.
- Confirm who prices the FX conversion and whether a published rate is used, so that finance can compare against your current correspondent cost.
- If you run a bank, PSP or wallet: find out whether your national switch is already a technical connectivity provider, and which regulator letter you need before you join. In Ethiopia, that is the central bank's letter of no objection.
- Shortlisting counterparties: the fintech category and Find Partner help identify payment companies in a country, and country pages list who operates where. A listing is a starting point; confirm the company's licence and corridor status with the company and its regulator.
- Recheck within a week of any decision. Several items above change on a monthly cadence, and Intelligence is where we track this kind of shift.
Frequently asked questions
Is PAPSS live in every African country? No. PAPSS says it connects 28 countries as of July 2026, but in March 2025 commercial banks were live in 12. Whether your route works depends on both banks.
Can a mobile money wallet send money through PAPSS? In pilots, yes. Ghana's governor said in October 2026 that PAPSS had been extended to wallets on the Ghana-Nigeria corridor, while Ethiopian wallets still need a National Bank of Ethiopia letter of no objection.
Does PAPSS remove the US dollar? For supported routes, payments are made and received in local currencies, so the dollar is not the payment currency. Conversion between the two currencies still happens, and someone sets the rate.
Is it cheaper? PAPSS claims large cost reductions, but the figures come from the network itself. Ask your bank for an all-in quote against your current route.
Can a company sign up directly? Not as a company. Access is through participating banks, payment providers or national switches.
Sources
- PAPSS, Pesalink and PAPSS partnership for local-currency cross-border payments in Kenya, 26 February 2026.
- PAPSS, BEAC Joins PAPSS, July 2026.
- Ecofin Agency, BCEAO prepares PAPSS pilot, 21 July 2026.
- Capital Ethiopia, Mobile money wallets set to link with PAPSS, 4 October 2026.
- Central Banking, National Bank of Ethiopia joins Papss, 16 October 2026.
- Ghana News Agency, Bank of Ghana pilots digital cross-border payments with Rwanda, Nigeria, 13 October 2026.
- Starr FM, Onafriq, PAPSS partner to launch cross-border payment services in Ghana, 20 June 2025.
- Onafriq, wallet-based outbound payments pilot from Nigeria to Ghana, 2 February 2026.
- FXC Intelligence, The continuing growth of PAPSS, 13 March 2025.
- Central Bank of Nigeria circular TED/FEM/PUB/FPC/01/005, July 2023, as reproduced by RegAlert.
- Ecofin Agency, Africa's instant payment systems processed $1.98 trillion in 2024, 14 November 2025, reporting AfricaNenda's SIIPS 2025.
- Leadership, E-payments hit N3.46 quadrillion amid $143.4m Pan-African transactions: CBN, 2026, reporting the CBN annual report.
- Mondaq, CBN reviews documentation requirements for PAPSS transactions in Nigeria, 2025.
- TechTrends Kenya, PAPSS targets faster adoption as transaction volumes jump 1000pc, 17 September 2026.
- Payments Journal, Real-time cross-border payment initiated in Ghana, 14 March 2023.