Cross-border trade between Europe and Africa has been growing over the past couple of years, with the exchange of goods totalling $410.72 billion in 2025 alone, according to data from the European Commission.
But moving the money is still a challenge and importers and exporters often have to wait several days for their payments to clear, making it hard to manage cash flow.
This is because transfers made through traditional payment systems have to go through several banks on other networks, which can result in higher fees and longer processing times.
On average, cross-border payments made on traditional systems along Europe-Africa trade routes take 3 to 5 days and cost around 8-9% for every $200 transfer. Regional initiatives like PAPSS have helped improve settlement across Africa, but gaps still remain.
Trade between Europe and Africa is also still mostly invoiced in euros and US dollars. What this means is that the euro dominates francophone markets, where the XOF and XAF are pegged to it, while the dollar is more common in major hubs such as Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. But floating pairs such as the naira-euro and shilling-euro face greater FX shortages and correspondent banking delays.
Additionally, the structure of the trade creates a currency mismatch. European exports to Africa are heavily weighted toward higher-value machinery, pharmaceuticals and chemicals, typically invoiced in euros or dollars. African exports, meanwhile, are mainly commodities such as energy, cocoa and raw minerals priced in dollars. This leaves African importers with greater demand for hard currency and can tie up working capital as banks source euros and dollars through the relevant networks.
Stablecoins Are Building A New Africa-EU Payments Corridor
The situation has pushed business owners in these regions to turn to stablecoins for their transactions as a way to preserve the value of their money and get paid faster resulting in more stablecoin in Africa. Data from techcabal indicates that USDT and USDC now make up for more than 40% of crypto transaction volume in Sub-Saharan Africa, of which enterprises are using them for remittances, trade and cross-border payments.
USDT and USDC are seen as a good alternative for moving money across borders because they can be sent directly between businesses through blockchain networks, cutting out some of the banks and middlemen involved in traditional transfers. This, in turn, creates a faster way to do transfers between European and African nations and the added benefits of transparency and protection against local currency volatility.
According to FXC’s Intelligence’s State of Stablecoins in Cross-Border Payments report, businesses in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and South Africa are using USDT and USDC to make payments to European countries due to the cost benefits.
The report says that such transactions typically cost between 1.5% and 4.5%, compared with the typical 8-9% incurred when using traditional settlement avenues.
“We are entering a period of escape velocity in terms of everyone recognising this is a new and upgraded payments technology,” said Chris Harmse, Co-founder and Chief Business Officer at BNVK, a provider of stablecoin infrastructure.
The impact of these payment rails goes beyond faster transactions. These flows reshape working capital and inventory cycles, freeing up cash and accelerating the movement of goods, while reinforcing trade imbalances as Africa exports commodities and imports higher-value machinery, technology and specialized inputs from Europe.
Take a French machinery supplier expecting payment from a Nigerian importer on the same day, where long maritime transit times and congestion at Lagos ports can leave them holding large amounts of inventory. Or consider a Kenyan agricultural exporter selling into the Netherlands, where Dutch-backed investment in cold storage and reefer logistics is helping reduce the time perishable goods spend in traffic.
EU-Africa Stablecoin Rails in Action
Zynta, a payments infrastructure platform, is already using stablecoins on multiple chains like Solana, Ethereum, and Stellar to support EU-Africa transactions.
The platform aims to solve challenges that come from using traditional settlement rails, which often leave businesses waiting for their funds to arrive for days while also charging high fees for the transfers.
Zynta says it has processed more than $300 million across Africa-EU rails, with more than 100 businesses onboarded, including exporters and procurement firms.
The company has also built compliance measures into its infrastructure, including automated KYC, KYB, and AML screening, and holds VASP licenses across European and African jurisdictions.
Another example is the partnership between European fintech firm Esca Finance and Africa-based Mansa, which began in 2026. In this case, the two companies are focused on solving prefunding, which is a major challenge facing cross-border payments.
Payment companies usually need to hold funds in destination markets before they can make local payouts. But this comes with the disadvantage of tying up capital that could otherwise be used elsewhere.
Mansa provides USDT-settled liquidity to its customers, while Esca handles local FX, banking and payout infrastructure, which supports same-day settlement in countries like Nigeria and Ghana.
Mansa says it has processed more than $453 million in on-chain volume and financed over $228 million in payments across more than 40 rails. On the other hand, Esca processes between $75 million and $120 million in monthly volume, with transactions through its partner expected to account for 10–20% of its monthly flows.
Regulation Is Also Shaping The EU-Africa Rails
The regulatory environment is also impacting how European and African importers and exporters transact with each other. In Europe, for example, the MiCA deadline on July 1, 2026 closed the market to stablecoins that did not meet the new requirements.
Exchanges including Coinbase, Kraken, Crypto.com and Binance restricted or delisted USDT ahead of the deadline, leaving Circle’s USDC and EURC among the main fully authorised options.
This has reduced the number of stablecoins available for regulated EU transactions, and if this trend continues, it could push more EU-Africa payment activity towards compliant issuers such as USDC and EURC.
Meanwhile, the situation in Africa is more mixed, with Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and South Africa introducing licensing frameworks for digital asset businesses, while Algeria has criminalized crypto, Egypt and Morocco have banned it, and Ethiopia and Angola have imposed restrictions.
That difference could affect how businesses move money between the two regions, with regulated markets offering a clearer path for payment providers to connect stablecoin rails to existing financial infrastructure, while peer-to-peer transfers may continue to fill the gaps in more restrictive markets.
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