Africa is focusing on a more immediate pain point,intra-continental trade and cross-border payments. At the recently concluded Afreximbank Annual Meetings (AFRAM 2025) held in Abuja, a significant announcement was made. The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), in partnership with Interstellar, a blockchain infrastructure firm, launched a blockchain-powered African Currency Marketplace.
What this essentially does is digitise and decentralise the continent’s fragmented FX system, allowing African countries to trade directly using their local currencies, bypassing the need for dollar or euro conversions. It’s a major leap toward the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) goals, which have been partially slowed by FX barriers, clearance delays, and poor liquidity flows between member states.
The platform operates on distributed ledger technology (DLT), ensuring real-time settlements, enhanced transparency, and reduced costs. For African fintechs, importers, and exporters, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), this could be game-changing.
This is blockchain being used not as a buzzword, but as an actual infrastructure layer for Africa’s economic engine. The move takes direct aim at the legacy banking systems that have historically made it expensive, and at times impossible, for African businesses to move money across borders.
It also sets the stage for increased private-sector innovation. With a functioning, compliant blockchain base in place, startups can build FX, lending, and remittance products that don’t have to reinvent the plumbing.
But perhaps the bigger narrative here is sovereignty. This initiative is about Africa owning its payment rails, reducing dependence on foreign intermediaries, and making intra-African trade real, not just on paper.
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