The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) is targeting full continental coverage within the next five years as it begins its second strategic plan focused on deepening adoption and expanding the use of its cross-border payment infrastructure.
Mike Ogbalu, chief executive officer of PAPSS, said the payment system expects to increase the number of countries connected to its network from the current 30 to about 38 by the end of 2026, with a target of achieving 80 percent coverage of the continent, including all major African economies.
Ogbalu disclosed this at a press conference in Lagos, where he said the second strategic plan would move PAPSS beyond the foundational work of its first phase to focus more on adoption and delivering value to end users. “We expect that by the end of those five years, we will have all countries,” Ogbalu said. “Our key focus is the big market which we have.
I think the only big market that we do not yet have on the continent is South Africa, but we are engaging, and I think the engagement has been positive.” He said PAPSS had spent its first strategic phase building the infrastructure, governance framework and connections needed to support instant cross-border payments across Africa, adding that the focus would now shift towards deepening usage across connected markets. “In phase one, we dealt with spread.
But today, in our phase two, it is all about deepening, taking the value that we created and actually making it available where it matters most to the end users,” he said. According to Ogbalu, PAPSS has already connected 30 countries, represented by about 26 central banks, and more than 200 financial institutions across the continent. He said the system had also connected a number of national and regional payment switches, creating an infrastructure