Stablecoins gain ground in African trade but face hurdles to wider use

Stablecoins gain ground in Africa but face hurdles to use

Stablecoins are giving African businesses an alternative way to pay overseas suppliers, but costs, security concerns and fragmented blockchain networks remain obstacles to wider use, industry executives told Moonshot by TechCabal in Lagos.

Speaking on a panel titled, “Where Are Stablecoins Creating Real Value in Africa?”, representatives from Solana Superteam Nigeria, Obiex and Hyperbridge said demand was being driven by practical difficulties in accessing foreign currency and completing international payments.

Chinonso Obiefule, lead at Solana Superteam Nigeria, said some Nigerian businesses were already using stablecoins to pay suppliers in China when dollars were difficult to obtain through conventional channels.

“People want to access dollars, but they cannot do that because, obviously, dollars aren’t easily accessible, so the next best option is actually stablecoin,” he said.

The appeal extends beyond access to foreign currency. Businesses trading across time zones also need to move funds outside banking hours, said Odinaka Esiagu, head of customer success and operations at Obiex.

A company buying goods from a Chinese supplier might need to complete a payment while its bank was closed, she said. Stablecoins could allow it to transfer funds without waiting until the next banking day.

Esiagu said the technology would improve the flexibility of certain transactions rather than eliminate the need for banks.

The discussion reflected the growing role of dollar-linked digital assets in Nigeria’s financial system. The country received about $59 billion in crypto-asset inflows between July 2023 and June 2024, according to the IMF.

That figure covers crypto assets broadly, rather than stablecoins alone. The fund also estimates that Nigeria has accounted for roughly 60 per cent of stablecoin inflows into sub-Saharan Africa since 2019.

Costs and confidence

For businesses, however, a new payment channel must offer more than availability. Obiefule said developers needed to make international transfers cheaper, safer and easier to use.

“It should be cheaper to send money to somebody abroad or to get money from somebody abroad,” he said.

Low blockchain transaction fees were an important consideration for companies choosing which networks to use, he added. Lower costs could make stablecoin payments commercially viable for more businesses.

Trust remained another constraint. Esiagu said reports of cryptocurrency platforms being hacked continued to deter potential customers.

“Some people are still scared,” she said.

Obiex was developing a service to help businesses build stablecoin-based products by providing technical and compliance-related support, she added. The aim was to allow companies to focus on their customers without having to develop all the underlying capabilities themselves.

Connecting separate networks

Seun Lanlege, chief executive of Hyperbridge, said fragmentation across blockchains created a further challenge: funds available on one network were not necessarily readily accessible on another.

That limited users’ ability to draw on liquidity across platforms, complicating the promise of seamless transfers.

Lanlege said Hyperbridge provided infrastructure for moving tokens between networks, while its HyperFX product used those connections to facilitate transactions across blockchain ecosystems.

Such systems needed to prioritise security and decentralisation, he argued, warning that reliance on centralised intermediaries could create vulnerabilities.

Regulation also remains central to the market’s development. The IMF has called for clearer treatment of stablecoin issuers in Nigeria, alongside stronger oversight and better data on how digital assets interact with the domestic financial system.

It has warned that widespread use of dollar-denominated stablecoins could weaken monetary policy transmission and create financial integrity risks.

Credit Direct, the consumer lending subsidiary of FCMB Group, a Nigerian financial services group, is expanding beyond traditional lending into embedded finance as it seeks to make credit and other financial services more accessible to individuals and businesses.

Victoria Arinze, product marketing lead at Credit Direct, said at Moonshot by TechCabal in Lagos that Credit Direct wants to use partnerships with businesses and merchants to bring credit closer to these transactions.

Embedded finance involves integrating financial services into platforms where customers already make payments or conduct other transactions, allowing them to access services such as loans without having to approach a financial institution separately.

The continent’s 50 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face a funding gap estimated at more than $330 billion. Credit Direct aims to close this by extending its lending expertise and integrating financing into the platforms that businesses and people use.

“We are primarily a credit organisation, and that has not changed and will never change. Credit is still the core of what we do,” Arinze said “What we’ve realised, however, is that credit really is not the end of how a person’s finances is built. When you give them credit, they then need to live their life, and living their life means being able to pay for things when they want to or when they have to.”

Founded in 2007, Credit Direct has spent nearly two decades lending to Nigerians, including customers in markets traditional lenders have often been reluctant to serve. Its 2025 Nigeria Credit Landscape Report, which draws on data from more than 300,000 borrowers, found that the average loan amount on its platform increased by 23.5% to ₦449,178 ($326.75) in 2025, with rent, medical bills, and school fees being the three leading reasons customers borrowed.

Credit Direct is also expanding into SME financing through CreditDirect Business, one of its newer products. The product offers general-purpose loans, invoice-backed financing, and loan purchase order (LPO) contract financing, with loans of up to ₦50 million ($37,130) available to eligible businesses. Loan amounts depend on factors including cash flow, existing obligations, and the nature of the business. Arinze said it is still relatively new and that the company is using customer feedback and engagement to determine how its products should evolve.

“We’re not really looking to outbank the banks or out-fintech the fintechs. It’s really the people at the end of the day, and getting to that strength to partner with the persons that we have to when we need to,” she said.

Arinze said the company is now exploring expansion into other West African markets, with discussions currently ongoing. It did not disclose specific countries or timelines.