The AfricaNenda Foundation is calling on instant payment systems (IPS) operators and central banks in African states to provide data for the 2025 State of Inclusive Instant Payment Systems (SIIPS) Africa Report.
AfricaNenda Foundation is a World Bank and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) funded organisation committed to promoting inclusive instant payment across Africa by producing the annual SIIPS Africa Report, which comprehensively analyses the state of IPSs across the continent, identifies what the bottlenecks are, and makes valuable recommendations on how to surmount the challenges and deepen inclusivity.
In doing so, the Foundation solicits for relevant data on the state of instant payments systems and the level of inclusivity from all African states, to be able to determine the level each country has reached in their journey to inclusive IPSs, whether basic, progressive or mature levels.
Over the years, a few African countries, including Ghana, have provided comprehensive data either directly to the Foundation or made it easily accessible on their websites, while other countries have either provided very little or no data at all.
In an open letter to heads of IPSs and central banks across Africa, the Chief Executive Officer of AfricaNenda Foundation, Robert Ochola underscored the need for African states to share their data, saying that the data they share play a very critical role in a number of ways, including the following:
- Understanding the reach, adoption, and operational performance of IPSs and IIPSs in different markets
- Analysing the volume, value and frequency of instant payment to tract growth and identify opportunities for improvement
- Highlighting challenges such as interoperability gaps, transaction costs, and regulatory hurdles, while showcasing best practices and
- Equipping central banks, regulators, and financial service providers with reliable data to shape IPS policies and innovations that promote financial inclusion.
Robert Ochola noted that over the years, data shared with the Foundation have gone a long way to help shape the future of real-time payments in Africa, and has also ensured that Africa’s payments systems continue to evolve based on strong, data-driven insights.
He said AfricaNenda Foundation considers the IPSs and central banks as valuable partners, because their participation in developing the SIIPS Report every year has helped to encourage markets across the continent to shift towards inclusive IPSs, which is a crucial step towards achieving financial inclusion across the continent.
2024 SIIPS Report Published
Meanwhile, the 2024 SIIPS Africa Report, which was officially launched earlier this year in Accra, has now been published and can be accessed and downloaded on this link – AfricaNenda Annual Report 2024 – AfricaNenda.
Key highlights of the report include the following:
- 31 IPSs in Africa are recording US$1 trillion in 49 billion instant payment transactions.
- 27 new IPSs are being developed on the continent, out of which seven are expected to go live with the next 18 months
- Only nine (9) IPSs on the continent are truly inclusive
- The value of transactions on IPSs in Africa grew by 273% between 2020 and 2023, while volume of transaction grew by 47% growth over the period.
- Over the last five years, value of transaction has seen 39% average annual growth and volumes have seen 37% average annual growth.
- 400 million African adults still lack access to financial service, constituting 40% of Africa’s adult population, out of which 60% are women
- Key barriers to inclusion include lack of digital literacy, affordability trust as it relates to fraud, safety and security, and reliability of the service as compared to cash transactions.
- The need for Regulatory Harmonization to drive meaningful integration of IPSs across the continent to ensure smooth cross-border payments
