Having a financial account is important. But does that account help someone pay a supplier, receive wages, settle a bill or manage the daily finances of a small business?
That question sits at the heart of the fifth edition of the State of Inclusive Instant Payment Systems in Africa report.
When AfricaNenda Foundation published the first State of Inclusive Instant Payment Systems in Africa (SIIPS) report in 2022, we set out to provide a shared picture of where instant payment systems were being developed and what the design and development best practices were. Four editions later the number of IPS have grown considerably.
As we prepare to launch SIIPS 2026 the question is no longer only where IPS exist and how we can build them, but it is also what are they delivering for the people and small businesses that use them?
The analysis from this year’s report reveals that IPS are deepening financial usage for individuals and small businesses. These findings highlight how policymakers, operators, and funders should think about the next phase of investment. Below, we share an early look at what we have found.
The inclusion evolution—looking beyond access
For over a decade, the financial inclusion story in Africa has emphasized account ownership as a necessary precondition for effectively using financial services. The continent has seen genuine progress on that measure, with account ownership increasing to nearly 60% of adults in the last decade, up from 34%. This growth has been enabled in many countries—though not all— by the availability of mobile money accounts, according to data by the Global Findex. Yet account ownership is just the first step toward broad-based financial inclusion. Millions of accounts sit dormant, opened to accept a single transfer and rarely touched again. If instant payment systems are to have an impact on financial inclusion, they need to go beyond account ownership to drive account usage.
For SIIPS 2026, AfricaNenda looked into where instant payment systems are making measurable impact. Based on more than a decade of data from 54 African economies, we compared countries that have a live instant payment system with those that do not. The analysis shows that having an instant payment system does not affect whether people own accounts. Instead, it meaningfully increases the share of account owners who actively use them and how often. In short, instant payment systems enable those with accounts to use them for more transaction types.
The takeaway is that enabling instant payments is not a substitute for focused initiatives to reach and increase access for the unbanked. Their power lies further downstream, by converting passive access into active use of digital financial services to manage household and small business finances.
What are the rails carrying? More, smaller value transactions.
The behavioral evidence corroborates the data. Since 2021, the average transaction value passing through an African instant payments system has decreased by more than half, from US$58 to US$25.
This decline has happened even as the total volumes and values of all payments passing through these systems have increased. This suggests that end users are making a larger number of smaller, everyday payments using digital methods. From taxi fares and market vegetables to small supplier top-ups, the rails increasingly support people’s everyday lives.
An example of what that looks like for real people appears in the end-user research we conducted in Tanzania, where small business users of the Tanzania Instant Payment System (TIPS) are able to restock more frequently because they have faster access to proceeds from sales. The benefits come not just in the form of convenience but also, overtime, in the form of formal records, tax visibility, and credit histories that may enable formalization and greater access to capital.
The implication: design for use, not just access
Knowing that instant payment systems deliver value by driving usage should affect how instant payment system operators, payment service providers, and advocates pursue the next phase of payment digitalization in Africa. Things to consider include:
- Fee structures. Instant payment systems and their participants should revisit how they charge, to ensure they are not pricing themselves based on old assumptions about the type of transaction that moves over digital rails. Supporting small, frequent everyday transactions require payment models to encourage those transaction types.
- Use cases. To drive scale and habitual adoption, instant payment systems could support all payment types, enabling people to accept wages, government transfers, remittances, and person-to-person payments through their accounts, and then use that money to make digital merchant payments and pay bills and taxes, without resorting to cash.
- Interoperability enables deeper usage, since the value of any individual system depends on whether people can use it seamlessly to pay and receive payment from anybody.
A milestone worth marking
For five editions, SIIPS has tracked the maturing of Africa’s payments infrastructure. It has become the reference point for regulators, operators, and development partners, providing a shared evidence base for the sector. The evidence is telling us that financial inclusion efforts in Africa must adapt to take a more holistic view. Increasing access continues to be necessary, but they should be part of more holistic efforts to encourage, expand, and enhance what people can do with them.
Join us in Mauritius for the launch of SIIPS 2026, where policymakers, payment-system operators, financial-service providers and development partners will explore what it will take to make instant payments part of everyday economic life for everyone across Africa. Register now.
