PAPSS

Overview

The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) is a continental real-time gross settlement (RTGS) infrastructure that lets businesses and individuals across Africa make cross-border payments in their own local currencies, while the underlying inter-central-bank settlement is netted and cleared centrally [2]2. It was created by the African Union (AU) and the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) as the payment backbone for the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) [2]2. PAPSS is a settlement rail, not a QR symbology; it is the cross-border clearing layer beneath local instant-payment and QR schemes, allowing, for example, a payment initiated on one country's mobile rail to settle in a beneficiary's local currency in another country [1][1][2]2.

History

• 7 July 2019 — PAPSS was first announced at the 12th Extraordinary Session of the African Union Assembly in Niamey, Niger [2]2.
• 13 January 2022 — PAPSS was publicly launched by the African Union and Afreximbank [2]2.
• 2023 — A Caribbean pilot began with CARICOM nations; Afreximbank designated the Caribbean as a sixth diaspora "region" of Africa, opened an office in Barbados, and projected a Caribbean launch around Q4 2024 [2]2.
• November 2024 — The Central Bank of Egypt joined; Cairo became a strategic node and PAPSS headquarters location [2]2.
• 7 July 2025 — Bank Al-Maghrib (Morocco) signed up, becoming PAPSS's 17th country of presence [3]3.
• 15 August 2025 — The Bank of Algeria joined, becoming the 18th country of presence [3]3.

Enrolled central banks include the founding West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) members and a widening set across the continent. As of late 2025 the member central banks comprised, among others: Bank of Ghana, Central Bank of Nigeria, Central Bank of Liberia, Central Bank of the Republic of Guinea, Bank of Sierra Leone, Central Bank of The Gambia, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Bank of Zambia, Central Bank of Kenya, Central Bank of Djibouti, Central Bank of Tunisia, Central Bank of Egypt, Central Bank of the Comoros, Reserve Bank of Malawi, National Bank of Rwanda, Bank of the Republic of Burundi, Bank Al-Maghrib (Morocco) and the Bank of Algeria [2]2.

Technical specification

PAPSS works as a centralised clearing and settlement hub layered above national central-bank systems [2]2:

1. A company or individual issues a payment instruction through its local bank or payment provider.
2. The instruction is routed through the originating country's central bank to PAPSS.
3. PAPSS validates the instruction.
4. Central banks settle the obligation in hard currency through Afreximbank.
5. The beneficiary receives funds in its own local currency.

Daily netting is central to the model: PAPSS nets out the balance of all transactions among the individual African currencies before midnight, with any remaining net differences settled between the central banks [2]2. This local-currency clearing model is designed to cut dependence on third-currency (typically US dollar) correspondent-banking routing, reducing cost and settlement time [1][1][2]2.

PAPSS is governed through a Governing Council and operated as an Afreximbank/AU initiative [2]2. The system has been extended with adjacent products: PAPSSCARD, described as Africa's first continental card scheme, and the PAPSS African Currency Marketplace (PACM) for direct exchange of African currencies, both launched in 2025 [4][4][5]5.

Use cases

• Intra-African trade — settling cross-border B2B trade payments in local currencies, the core AfCFTA use case [2]2.
• Remittances and retail — person-to-person and consumer payments across borders, increasingly via the card and marketplace layers added in 2025 [4][4][5]5.
• FX / currency exchange — the PACM marketplace enables direct, peer-to-peer exchange of African currencies, reducing reliance on hard-currency intermediation [5]5.

National payment switches connect to PAPSS rather than individual standards; as of August 2025 the network linked 14 payment switches across member countries [3]3.

Implementations

Membership/connectivity figures (mid-to-late 2025):

• 18 countries of presence across four African regions following Algeria's accession on 15 August 2025 [3]3.
• More than 150 commercial banks connected [3]3.
• 14 payment switches integrated [3]3.
• Some 2025 reporting cites the network reaching 19 countries as additional accessions were processed [4]4.

Comparison

PAPSS and Buna (Arab Monetary Fund) are the two leading regional multi-currency settlement systems, and they are complementary rather than competing: PAPSS clears African local currencies for the AfCFTA bloc, while Buna clears Arab-region and selected global currencies for the Arab region — and the two are natural bridge points between Africa and the Middle East [2][2][5]5. Both differ from Nexus, which interlinks national instant-payment systems globally via a single multilateral connection and sits at the retail messaging/routing layer rather than acting as a regional clearing house [2]2. PAPSS also differs from the ASEAN Regional Payment Connectivity (RPC) umbrella: RPC coordinates QR-acceptance and fast-payment linkages between countries, whereas PAPSS is the underlying multi-currency settlement engine [2]2.

Fun facts

• After the Central Bank of Egypt joined in November 2024, Cairo became a PAPSS headquarters location, positioning Egypt as a link between Africa and the Middle East [2]2.
• In 2025 PAPSS launched PAPSSCARD, billed as the first pan-African card scheme, and the PAPSS African Currency Marketplace, marketed as eliminating an estimated multi-billion-dollar African FX trade bottleneck [4][4][5]5.

Status

PAPSS is live and expanding. It launched publicly on 13 January 2022 and, as of August 2025, connected 18 countries, more than 150 commercial banks and 14 payment switches across four African regions, with 2025 also bringing the PAPSSCARD card scheme and the PACM currency marketplace into operation [3][3][4][4][5]5.

Sources

1 PAPSS — official site — Pan-African Payment and Settlement System, 2025 2 Pan-African Payment and Settlement System — Wikipedia, accessed 2026 3 Bank of Algeria joins PAPSS network — PAPSS, August 2025 4 Africa's payment revolution: PAPSS network expands — African Business, November 2025 5 Bank Al-Maghrib signs up to PAPSS as Morocco becomes 17th member country — Afreximbank, July 2025

Deployments

Found in the following country reports (grep across reports/countries/):

• TN — TN-tunisia.md

Regions / aggregations not mapped to a single country

• Africa