$2 trillion. That is how much flowed through mobile money wallets globally in 2025, doubling from the first trillion in just four years, according to GSMA’s State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money 2026. Sub-Saharan Africa alone accounted for $1.4 trillion of that, representing 66% of total global transaction value.
“The speed and pace at which digital payments are growing in Africa is unprecedented,” Michael Berner, Visa’s Head of South and East Africa, told TechCabal on the sidelines of the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali, Nairobi, on May 15. “It is much faster than anywhere else in the world. In two or three years, we would not recognise some of the realities we face now.”
Visa, which is four years into a five-year, $1 billion commitment to the continent, has reason to believe it. In July 2025, the payments giant opened its first Africa data centre in Johannesburg, South Africa’s capital, a move Berner frames less as corporate expansion than as proof of skin in the game. But with African governments increasingly seeking to build domestic payment infrastructure, the question is no longer whether global networks like Visa belong here. It is on what terms.
On crypto, Berner was direct: “Stablecoins specifically could be pretty big,” he said, adding that pilots for crypto-based settlements between banks and Visa were coming “very, very soon.” It coincides with a broader industry shift.
