Access Bank and Stables Want to Reinvent Cross-Border Payments in Africa With Stablecoins

Key Takeaways:

• Australian fintech Stables has announced a collaboration with Access Bank South Africa to explore stablecoin-powered cross-border payment infrastructure for businesses.
• The partnership is an exploratory initiative rather than a product launch, with any commercial solution subject to regulatory approval.
• The announcement reflects a broader trend: banks and fintechs are increasingly experimenting with stablecoin infrastructure to improve international payments.

Australian fintech firm Stables has announced a collaboration with Access Bank South Africa to explore how stablecoins can improve cross-border payments for businesses operating in Africa. This initiative aims to examine whether stablecoins can fix those real-world friction points associated with traditional banking.

Neither company is offering a new consumer crypto app or launching a public coin, and any future commercial payment solution will require strict regulatory approval before going live. 

Stables is an Australian technology company specialising in payment rails, holding regulatory registrations across Australia, Europe, and Canada. Access Bank South Africa, a subsidiary of Access Holdings Plc, provides corporate, commercial, and transactional banking services across the region. Together, they are testing whether the underlying blockchain technology can modernize how African businesses settle international accounts.

Stables Enters Africa Through Access Bank South Africa

Stables has built its platform around enterprise infrastructure. It enables businesses to send, receive, and settle payments through stablecoins, particularly Tether (USDT). After expanding its payment footprint across Asian markets, the company is now turning its attention to Africa, choosing South Africa as its initial anchor point on the continent.

Access Bank South Africa was a strategic choice for this trial. Access Holdings Plc operates a vast banking network across several African countries and major international commercial centres. By teaming up with a major commercial bank, Stables can test its technical payment systems directly against real commercial banking requirements.

The primary goal of this collaboration is to evaluate how enterprise payment infrastructure can integrate stablecoin rails to move money across borders faster and with lower overhead.

Why Cross-Border Payments Still Need Fixing

Under the traditional banking system, when a business in South Africa wants to pay a supplier in Nigeria or Asia, the transaction rarely moves directly between the two local bank accounts. Instead, it relies on correspondent banking networks.

In a correspondent banking setup, funds are sent through several intermediary banks, often passing through foreign currency hubs like New York or London to convert local money into US dollars before converting it into the destination currency. Each bank in this chain charges a handling fee, applies an exchange rate markup, and takes time to verify and process the transaction. This process leads to settlement delays of two to five business days. 

For a growing business, waiting nearly a week for payments to clear is a problem as it restricts access to capital and creates unpredictable currency exposure.

The costs associated with these delays are particularly high in Sub-Saharan Africa. World Bank data consistently highlight that sending money into and within Sub-Saharan Africa is more expensive than anywhere else in the world, with average transaction costs for small transfers. When commercial banks process these transfers, total fees can rise even further due to correspondent banking charges. Large enterprises, mid-sized exporters, and small businesses alike end up paying a heavy tax in the form of high fees and delayed trade, simply to move capital across national boundaries.

Banks Are Moving From Watching Stablecoins to Testing Them

For several years, most mainstream financial institutions treated stablecoins with caution, viewing them strictly as speculative tools used within crypto trading markets. However, a major shift is occurring across global finance. Traditional banks and global payment giants are shifting from passive observation to active testing of stablecoin infrastructure.

Unlike volatile cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, a dollar-backed stablecoin is engineered to always equal one physical dollar. When used for payments, a stablecoin acts like a digital dollar that can move across global software networks instantly, 24 hours a day, without waiting for bank opening hours or foreign correspondent clearances.

The collaboration between Access Bank South Africa and Stables is part of a broader global trend where established financial institutions are building connections to digital asset networks. 

Similar shifts can be seen across the ecosystem. Flutterwave has collaborated with Circle Ventures to integrate digital dollars; Stripe has partnered with OneDosh to enhance its crypto checkout options; and Visa has partnered with M-PESA and Onafriq on stablecoin pilots. Additionally, Standard Chartered collaborated with Yellow Card to streamline digital asset settlement, while Opera integrated digital payment features directly into Opera Mini Pay.

These developments signal that stablecoins are evolving from trading tools into standard corporate banking infrastructure. Banks realise that if they do not explore faster, software-driven payment rails, non-bank technology providers will fill the void for commercial clients requiring rapid international settlement.

Why South Africa Makes Strategic Sense

South Africa offers an ideal environment for testing stablecoin infrastructure. The country possesses a highly developed banking sector, deep capital markets, and a mature financial services ecosystem capable of supporting complex corporate transactions.

South Africa has also adopted a progressive regulatory approach to digital assets. The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) introduced a clear licensing framework that treats crypto assets as financial products, bringing digital asset service providers into a regulated perimeter. This clarity gives traditional institutions like Access Bank a structured environment in which to explore new financial technologies safely and transparently.

South Africa also serves as a financial and trade hub for Southern Africa and the broader continent. Millions of dollars in cross-border trade flow through South African financial channels daily. 

By establishing a functional technology pilot in South Africa, banking institutions can create a template that could eventually be expanded across regional trade corridors where payment friction is highest.

Enterprise Payments Are Becoming Stablecoins’ Biggest Use Case

While consumer payments and retail remittances often receive the most public attention, corporate and enterprise payments are emerging as the largest driver of stablecoin activity. Large companies, international importers, and logistics firms move significantly larger sums of capital than retail users, making them far more sensitive to transfer delays and banking fees.

For an international business, stablecoins offer a practical mechanism for treasury management, supplier payouts, cross-border invoicing, and international payroll. Instead of tying up funds in correspondent bank accounts for days, a company can convert local funds into digital dollars, send them directly to a supplier’s digital account in seconds, and allow the supplier to convert them into their local currency.

This practical shift explains why fintech platforms like Stables focus heavily on enterprise software interfaces rather than consumer trading apps. By connecting traditional bank accounts to digital settlement networks via secure application programming interfaces (APIs), businesses can access the speed of blockchain technology without managing complex private keys or navigating speculative crypto markets.

What This Means for African Banks

For African commercial banks, adopting digital payment infrastructure is about remaining competitive in a changing market. As global trade becomes increasingly real-time, traditional banks that rely solely on legacy correspondent networks risk losing corporate clients to specialised fintech platforms.

By testing stablecoin settlement layers, banks can drastically reduce their operational overhead and pass those savings on to commercial clients through lower transfer fees and faster execution. This is particularly valuable for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) engaged in import and export activities, as lower payment fees directly improve their profit margins and cash flow.

Stablecoin infrastructure does not necessarily replace regional fiat payment initiatives like the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS). Instead, digital asset infrastructure can complement existing systems. While PAPSS focuses on clearing intra-African trade in local central bank currencies, stablecoins provide a parallel rail for transactions requiring immediate liquidity linked to global dollar trade. Together, these systems give commercial banks a broader set of tools to support regional commerce.

Why This Matters

By exploring stablecoin infrastructure, traditional financial institutions are acknowledging that international payments need to match the speed of modern digital commerce. While regulatory reviews and technical testing will determine when and how these solutions reach commercial production, the direction of travel is clear. The future of cross-border business banking will be defined by hybrid models that combine the security and oversight of established commercial banks with the speed, efficiency, and programmability of modern payment networks.