More partnerships aim to boost African’s digital payments ecosystem

Details: Vaughan O'Grady; Category: Service Management; 20 October 2026; 548 views

Digital payments and remittances are becoming increasingly central to Africa’s economic growth and inspiring a number of significant recent partnerships, including one involving dLocal and Western Union and another involving Mastercard and Moovn Technologies.

dLocal, a payments platform connecting global merchants to emerging markets, and Western Union, a global leader in cross-border money movement, have announced an expansion of their partnership in Africa to include payouts.

This adds to the collections work they already run together, with dLocal providing the technology and connectivity layer, while regulated local partners execute the relevant payment and payout services. The expansion will start with a live payout corridor in Cameroon.

In Cameroon, one of the region's more fragmented wallet-based markets, recipients will be able to receive remittances directly into supported local wallets through local payout partners operating under applicable local regulatory frameworks (MNOs or financial institutions).

The reliability remittance senders already count on now extends all the way to the recipient's end too, creating one dependable path from send to receipt. This expansion also strengthens the foundation for Western Union to rely on a single partner across both collections and payouts, supporting continued growth of digital remittance corridors across emerging markets.

Indeed, the two companies are now exploring extending the payout expansion into other African markets, including Nigeria, with bank transfers and wallets.

Meanwhile payment tech giant Mastercard and Moovn Technologies, an African mobility and fintech platform, have signed a five-year strategic agreement to expand secure digital payments across East Africa, combining Mastercard’s global payments network with MoovnPay’s integrated wallet ecosystem to better serve people and businesses.

The collaboration will enable MoovnPay to scale a broad portfolio of payment capabilities, including virtual and physical prepaid Mastercard cards, tokenisation, online and in-app payment acceptance through Mastercard Payment Gateway Services (MPGS), available via Mastercard Merchant Cloud, Pay Local, peer-to-peer (P2P) transfers and eligible cross-border remittances.

These capabilities will be integrated into Moovn’s mobility, logistics, e-commerce and merchant platforms, giving riders, drivers, merchants, SMEs and other users more ways to pay, get paid and move money.

MoovnPay and Shooga, Moovn’s financial inclusion solution that enables peer-to-peer payments, fundraising and donations, will sit at the centre of the experience, giving users access to Mastercard prepaid cards within a single digital wallet.

As Pay Local expands across Kenya and Tanzania, participating merchants will be able to accept payments directly from MoovnPay users. Through Mastercard Move, eligible users will also be able to access more ways to send and receive money across borders, extending MoovnPay's value beyond mobility and commerce.

The next phase will focus on launching the Shooga prepaid Mastercard portfolio, advancing Pay Local in Kenya and Tanzania, and expanding MPGS, tokenisation and wallet capabilities as Moovn scales across the region.