Pan-African
How Africa’s cross-border payment system moved from pilot to expansion
The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System started with a West African pilot and launched commercially in 2022. Its operator reported a 28-country network reach in July 2026 after the Bank of Central African States joined.
Sources checked
- 2018System development and pilot agreement
- 28 September 2021Operational rollout announcement
- January 2022Commercial launch
- September 2022Customer transaction milestone
- June 2023Settlement model expansion
- 5 March 2025Bank-led launch announcement
Show 3 more dates
Follow the sequence from testing to commercial launches and central bank agreements.
Source 1 Source 2 Source 3 Source 4 Source 5 Source 6 Source 7
The pilot started in West Africa
The operator records six central banks in the West African Monetary Zone pilot. It dates the operational rollout to 2021, the commercial launch to January 2022 and the start of customer transactions to September 2022. These dates describe separate milestones. Source 1 Source 2
A customer payment travels through participating providers
The customer submits a payment in local currency through their bank or provider. The system validates the instruction and passes it to the recipient’s provider, which credits the recipient in their local currency. The operator publishes the underlying pre-funding and settlement process separately. Source 7
Settlement works on net positions
The operator explains that participating institutions use pre-funding to support payment availability. At its daily settlement point PAPSS calculates net positions and sends settlement instructions to central banks, with equivalent hard-currency settlement through Afreximbank in the process described. Source 7
An accession can precede service availability
The July 2026 BEAC announcement said PAPSS would work with the regional central bank through the end of 2026 to operationalise membership. The March 2025 announcement for KCB Group and Bank of Kigali documents a provider launch. Customers need to check the participating provider and corridor for their transaction. Source 6 Source 3
Sources
- PAPSS operator history and West African Monetary Zone pilot
- Afreximbank and AfCFTA Secretariat, operational rollout announcement
- PAPSS, KCB Group and Bank of Kigali rollout announcement
- PAPSS, Bank Al-Maghrib joining announcement
- PAPSS, Bank of Algeria joining announcement
- PAPSS, Bank of Central African States membership announcement
- PAPSS explanation of payment processing and settlement