Table Of Content
Key Takeaways:
- South African travel payments startup TurnStay says it processed more than R1 billion (about $60.7 million) in transactions during the first half of 2026.
- The company combines a merchant-of-record model with stablecoin settlement to reduce payment costs for African travel businesses.
- TurnStay says merchants can reduce payment processing fees from as much as 8% to starting rates of 1.6% and settle funds faster across borders.
TurnStay Crosses the $60 Million Milestone
South African travel payments startup TurnStay announced that it processed over R1 billion (approximately $60.7 million) in transactions during the first six months of 2026. The milestone comes just three years after the company was founded in 2021 by repeat fintech entrepreneurs Alon Stern and James Hedley.
Serving luxury safari lodges, hotel groups, and tour operators—including well-known brands like Singita, Londolozi, Safari.com, and The Capital—TurnStay has built rapid traction across key African travel hubs. While rooted in South Africa, the company has expanded operations into Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, and Mauritius to tackle chronic cross-border payment friction in the regional tourism sector.
Following a $300,000 pre-seed round in 2024 and a $2 million seed round in 2025, TurnStay is preparing a Series A capital raise to finance its next phase of continental growth.
How the Platform Works: Stablecoins Working Behind the Scenes
TurnStay operates by combining a merchant-of-record structure with payment orchestration and backend settlement in stablecoin. International tourists booking safari trips or hotel stays pay using standard credit cards in their home country. TurnStay acts as the legal seller of record, accepting domestic card payments in North America, Europe, or other foreign markets to avoid costly cross-border interchange fees.
Once card payments clear, TurnStay utilizes stablecoins behind the scenes to bridge foreign currencies and settle funds directly into local bank accounts for African operators.
Neither the traveler booking the lodge nor the hotel receiving local currency needs to hold or trade digital assets. The stablecoin settlement serves strictly as backend infrastructure, drastically reducing payment processing fees from historical rates as high as 8% down to starting rates of 1.6%, while shortening settlement timelines from weeks to days.
Why This Matters for Cross-Border Payments in Africa
TurnStay’s milestone highlights a fundamental shift in how stablecoins are used across Africa. For years, public discussion focused on retail crypto trading and speculative investment. Today, African fintechs are demonstrating a far more durable use case by embedding stablecoin payments in Africa as core enterprise financial plumbing.
Rather than positioning stablecoins as a direct consumer payment mechanism or an outright replacement for legacy banking networks, fintech platforms are quietly using stablecoins as backend settlement rails for instant liquidity and foreign exchange conversion. This movement is echoed across the ecosystem.
Pan-African payment giant Onafriq has built stablecoin settlement rails for banks. Opera’s Mini Pay enables daily stablecoin micro-transactions, Visa partnered with M-Pesa on stablecoin payment trials, and Flutterwave partnered with Circle Ventures to leverage USDC for global liquidity. TurnStay’s performance proves that vertical-specific platforms are becoming key drivers of enterprise stablecoin adoption across the continent.
Tourism Has Long Been an Expensive Payments Business
The travel sector represents one of the strongest practical use cases for stablecoin settlement. African tourism generates tens of billions of dollars annually, yet local merchants carry a disproportionately heavy fee burden compared to global booking giants.
African travel merchants face multi-currency friction, steep cross-border processing costs, wide foreign-exchange spreads, and elevated fraud risks associated with international card transactions.
Traditional banking rails can take weeks to settle international card payments, tying up vital working capital for safari lodges and boutique hotels. By combining a merchant-of-record model with stablecoin settlement, TurnStay removes these friction points.
The platform integrates directly with existing hotel booking engines and property management systems, allowing travel payments in Africa to flow seamlessly so local operators can retain higher margins and capture direct bookings.
What’s Next for TurnStay and Stablecoin Settlement
Looking ahead, TurnStay plans to deploy capital from its upcoming Series A round to expand its merchant footprint into additional African markets. The company is also pursuing further international regulatory licensing to ensure full compliance as its cross-border volume scales.
As institutional acceptance grows, stablecoin-powered payment infrastructure is moving out of the experimental phase and into mainstream commercial operations. TurnStay’s milestone underscores how specialized, industry-focused fintech solutions can use blockchain technology to lower costs, improve cash flow, and level the playing field for African travel merchants competing globally.
