PAPSS explained: paying across Africa in your own currency
The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System lets a trader in Accra pay a supplier in Nairobi in cedis while the supplier receives shillings. Here is how it works.
PANM — For decades, a payment between two African countries often had to go through dollars or euros, and banks abroad, costing time and money. The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) is Africa's answer.
What it is
PAPSS is a cross-border payment system that lets people and businesses pay someone in another African country in their own local currency, with the other side receiving theirs, instantly or nearly so. It was launched on 13 January 2022 by the African Union and Afreximbank to support trade under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The idea was first presented at the AU summit in Niamey in 2019, and the system was piloted in the six countries of the West African Monetary Zone.
How a payment moves
1. You instruct your bank, in your currency. 2. Your bank sends it through PAPSS. 3. PAPSS checks it and passes it to the recipient's bank. 4. The recipient is paid in their currency.
At the end of each day PAPSS nets out the payments between currencies, and central banks settle only the difference, with Afreximbank as settlement agent. That means less demand for scarce foreign currency.
Who is connected
By late 2025, 18 central banks had joined, among them the central banks of Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Rwanda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, The Gambia, Djibouti, Comoros and Burundi. Commercial banks and payment providers connect through them. Caribbean countries have also begun a pilot to trade with Africa through the system.
Why it matters
Cheaper, faster payments make it easier for small traders to buy and sell across borders, which is the whole point of a single African market.
