Paga and Crossmint Launch Stablecoin Infrastructure Partnership for Africans

What to Know

• Paga and Crossmint have announced a strategic partnership to accelerate stablecoin adoption across Africa.
• Crossmint will integrate Paga Engine’s fiat on and off-ramp infrastructure into its global enterprise payout network.
• Paga will use Crossmint’s infrastructure to deploy next-generation stablecoin wallets for consumers and agents.
• The companies say the partnership will help connect African users and businesses more directly to global financial networks.

Earlier this week, Paga and Crossmint announced a partnership to build stablecoin payment infrastructure across Africa. The collaboration combines Paga’s local payment network with Crossmint’s multi-chain wallet technology to connect the African market to global finance.

Two Companies, One Payment Bridge

Paga Group, founded in 2009, is one of Africa’s leading payments infrastructure companies. Paga has provided multi-faceted transaction frameworks, including consumer wallets, a human agent network, and B2B and API solutions across the continent.

Crossmint, founded in 2022, is an all-in-one stablecoin and wallet platform. Crossmint makes it easy for businesses to integrate blockchain, stablecoin, and digital asset features into their apps.

Per the official announcement, the partnership involves the creation of a bi-directional payment bridge.

Crossmint will integrate Paga Engine’s local fiat on and off-ramp capabilities into its payout network to enable its expansion into the African market. Paga will leverage Crossmint’s infrastructure to deploy next-generation stablecoin wallets for both consumers and agents. 

Both companies are major players in their respective fields. In 2025, Paga processed $11 billion in payments across 169 million transactions. Paga Engine, its B2B payment infrastructure, powers over 300 businesses, including Meta, LemFi, Qatar Airways, and Verto.

Crossmint powers over 40,000 companies with its 50+ natively supported blockchains, including Sui, Solana, Ethereum, Polygon, and Stellar.

The Role Smart Contract Wallets Play Here

As part of the agreement, Paga will adopt smart contract wallets, which differ technically from traditional crypto wallets.

Smart contract wallets are digital wallets powered by programmable code rather than a single private key. 

Because they operate on and are governed by the blockchain rather than a centralised company, programmable features such as spending limits, multi-signature approvals, social recovery, and enhanced bank-grade security are possible.

To the average user, all this sounds complex, and Paga and Crossmint are aware of this. For their partnership, the goal is to make all of that invisible to the end user. The blockchain runs in the background while consumers get a simple, familiar experience.

Why This Partnership Makes Sense for Africa

Cross-border payments are one of Africa’s most persistent financial challenges. Moving money between African countries, or between Africa and global markets, is typically slow and expensive.

Stablecoins are increasingly being used to fill that gap. In 2024, stablecoins accounted for 43% of total crypto transaction volume. Among crypto natives on the continent, there’s a 79% adoption rate of stablecoins. 

For Paga, this partnership is about the future of African finance and economy. Paga Founder and CEO Tayo Oviosu described the company’s direction clearly: “Paga has always been about building the rails for the future of money, and that future is multi-blockchain and multi-stablecoins. We are connecting the African economy to global finance—eliminating the tax of friction, preserving wealth, and giving African consumers and businesses the financial mobility they deserve.”

For Rodri Fernández Touza, Crossmint Co-founder, there is a more personal angle. 

“I once lived in Surulere, in the heart of Lagos,” he said, “so this partnership means a lot to me. The people I knew there worked hard for their money, yet moving it across borders was slow and expensive.”

Who Benefits and How

The partnership targets three groups. For multinationals and enterprises using Crossmint, it means immediate access to the African market through Paga’s existing payment infrastructure.

They won’t require new banking or payment processor relationships to enable local payment acceptance and global settlement in their desired stablecoin.

For developers and builders, Crossmint’s chain-agnostic API suite provides a single integration point. This could be used to deploy compliant, stablecoin-native financial products across more than 50 blockchains, without requiring them to manage blockchain complexity at the infrastructure layer.

For everyday users, the promise is faster payments, more control over digital assets, and a simpler experience.

A Pattern Emerging Across Africa

The Paga-Crossmint announcement is part of a broader wave of stablecoin infrastructure investment on the continent.

In May, Paga announced a partnership with Sui to integrate the Sui Dollar (USDsui) for instant dollar-denominated settlement.

Flutterwave has partnered with Tempo on stablecoin payments, and Yellow Card has been building dollar stablecoin rails across 20 African countries.

Across Africa, major fintech companies are building or integrating different pieces of an infrastructure stack that together could power Africa’s next generation of cross-border payments.