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Africa has seen a boom in its payments industry in recent years, driven by rising demand for digital payments, B2B lending and other financial services for underserved customers. As payments firms have scaled, they have taken on roles that were once the preserve of the public sector and incumbent financial institutions.
Regulators are responding to this shift by making legislation more market friendly. In markets such as Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and South Africa, authorities are revamping payments and fintech frameworks to keep pace with innovation while strengthening risk controls. The result is a more structured, although more demanding, regulatory environment.
Against this backdrop, 2026 is shaping up as a pivotal year for the fintech industry. Growth remains strong, but it is increasingly tied to regulatory credibility and institutional maturity. Laid out here are five key trends that are likely to define the payments and fintech landscape across Africa in the year ahead.
1. Payments firms being regulated as systemically important financial infrastructure
2026 is set to be the year when African regulators increasingly view payments firms as systemically important. These firms manage a major share of retail payments, merchant settlement and public-sector flows, making it imperative for regulators to ensure their operational resilience as a matter of economic stability.
Regulators have responded by strengthening licensing frameworks and moving towards continuous, institution-level supervision. In Nigeria, enhanced capital and governance requirements for payment service banks and switching companies reflect growing concern about concentration risk and operational failure. Similar dynamics are evident in Kenya’s payments reforms and in South Africa’s consolidation of payments oversight within the central bank. Regulators have also responded with scrutiny over corporate governance and group-wide risk management, rather than over specific products.
Firms that expanded rapidly through layered entities or informal governance arrangements should expect these structures to be tested more rigorously in the new year, evidenced through South Africa’s new prudential authority framework.
2. Financial crime controls shape how firms can scale
As African payments firms expand across territorial borders, financial crime regulation has become a significant constraint on growth. Regulators, such as the South African Reserve Bank’s Prudential Authority, are increasingly concerned with the misuse of digital payments infrastructure for illicit finance, particularly where agent networks, third-party onboarding or complex wallet structures are involved. Jurisdictions that want to position themselves as ready for business have proactively worked on strengthening their financial crime loopholes. As a testament to this, Nigeria and South Africa exited the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list in 2025.
This tightening is reflected in strengthened AML and counter-terrorism financing requirements for payment service providers, alongside closer alignment with FATF standards and heightened scrutiny of cross-border corridors. South Africa’s Prudential Authority has released a risk assessment report highlighting its efforts to strengthen AML systems with key focus areas including beneficial ownership, transaction monitoring and tax evasion schemes.
In 2026, financial crime frameworks will increasingly determine the pace and scalability of firms looking to expand into different verticals. Firms with fragmented compliance will struggle to grow, while those with integrated monitoring and strong oversight will scale sustainably.
3. Interoperability, the new norm
Closed-loop payment systems, which once facilitated rapid user acquisition, are now viewed as obstacles to competition, inclusion and systemic resilience. As a result, regulators including the Central Bank of Nigeria are encouraging, and in some cases requiring, integration with national switches, real-time payment systems and regional settlement infrastructure.
This shift aligns with broader policy objectives around financial inclusion and intra-African trade, particularly in the context of continental integration initiatives like the COMESA Digital Retail Payments Platform and the new Tanzania-Rwanda payments pilot. Consequently, value within the payments ecosystem is moving away from exclusivity at the customer interface and towards reliability, compliance and the ability to integrate seamlessly with shared infrastructure.
An example is the recent launch of the South African First National Bank and Mastercard Move’s cross-border payment platform, Globba, which connects key remittance borders such as Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique and Ghana.
4. Crypto no longer just a buzzword
Between June 2024-25, the annual on-chain value in sub-Saharan Africa exceeded US$200bn, with crypto activity dominated by stablecoins and small-value transfers used for cross-border payments, remittances and informal settlement. This pattern reflects practical demand, particularly in markets with volatile currencies, capital controls or limited access to correspondent banking.
Regulators are responding by including crypto activity into existing financial services frameworks. In Ghana, the central bank has moved to license virtual asset service providers, setting expectations around governance, capital and anti-money laundering controls. South Africa has designated crypto-asset service providers as accountable institutions under its AML regime, while Nigeria is regulating crypto activity through regulated capital markets structures.
This shift matters because crypto is no longer operating at the fringes of the payments system. Stablecoins are increasingly used for settlement and treasury management, and crypto rails are embedded within consumer wallets and merchant platforms. Regulators are therefore focused on financial crime risk, currency substitution and payment system integrity. These regulatory developments suggest crypto-linked services in 2026 will be supervised much like payments or remittance businesses, with clear expectations around customer due diligence, transaction monitoring and asset segregation.
5. Regulatory credibility becomes a prerequisite for funding and partnerships
As African fintechs mature, investors, banks and governments are placing greater weight on governance quality, supervisory relationships and the sustainability of compliance frameworks. This is particularly evident in government payment programmes and public disbursement platforms, where regulators and counterparties increasingly prioritise firms that can demonstrate institutional maturity. A key example of this is M-Pesa in Kenya where the superapp is now used to disburse government services as well. Development finance institutions and strategic investors are adopting a similar approach, treating regulatory risk as a central component of investment assessment.
This reframes compliance as a strategic asset. In 2026, early alignment with regulatory expectations is likely to unlock partnerships and lower-cost capital.
Taken together, these trends suggest that this year marks a turning point for African fintech, with sustainable growth increasingly shaped by governance discipline, regulatory credibility and infrastructure alignment, alongside continued innovation. Although innovation remains essential, it must now be matched with deeper institutional maturity, and firms that achieve this balance are likely to define the next phase of Africa’s financial system.
