Choosing payment providers for Africa: what to ask in each market

A merchant that already sells into Europe or the Gulf usually treats Africa as one line on the expansion plan. The first provider call shows why that does not work. Nigerian shoppers pay by bank transfer and local cards, Kenyans and Ghanaians pay from their phones, Egyptians pay from wallets or in cash, and Moroccans pay by card through an acquiring market that was rebuilt in 2026. A provider that is strong in one of these markets can be absent from the next.

This article sets out the questions to ask payment providers in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Egypt and Morocco, with the facts behind them, a comparison table and a worked scorecard. It follows the same method as our guides to choosing providers for MENA and for LATAM. How a mobile money payment works at checkout is covered separately in mobile money at checkout in Africa.

What should you ask every provider in Africa?

Start with seven questions that apply everywhere, then add the market questions below.

1. Cards, mobile money or bank transfer? Ask which rails the provider processes in each country, not for “Africa”. The answer decides whether most of your shoppers can pay at all.
2. Which local schemes and networks are live? Verve in Nigeria, M-Pesa in Kenya, each mobile money network in Ghana, wallets and Fawry in Egypt. “Supported” sometimes means “planned”.
3. What do you charge in, and what do you settle in? Local currency, dollars or both, and at what FX margin over which reference rate.
4. How fast do you settle? Ask for the number of working days per country and per method.
5. Can the money leave the country? Ask how the provider moves funds abroad and what has delayed it in the past.
6. Which entity is licensed, and what do you need from us? Some routes need a local company or bank account; others serve a foreign merchant.
7. How do refunds and payouts work per method? Mobile money and transfer refunds are new transfers, and cash methods need another path.

What should you ask in Nigeria?

Three things: transfers, Verve and naira. Nigeria is a bank transfer and card market, and our Nigeria guide explains how dynamic virtual accounts work at checkout. Ask whether the provider issues a virtual account per order, how fast it confirms the transfer, and what it charges. Paystack’s published pricing, for example, lists 1% per transaction for dedicated virtual accounts, capped at NGN 300, against 1.5% plus NGN 100 for local cards, capped at NGN 2,000.

Then Verve. Interswitch said in December 2025 that Verve had passed 100 million cards issued across Africa, and that it is expanding e-commerce acceptance at international merchants through partnerships. A Verve card is a local card; ask whether the provider processes it on the domestic route, and what its approval rates are by issuing bank.

Then currency. Techloy reported in July 2025 that several Nigerian banks restricted international use of naira cards in 2023, during the dollar shortage, and that GTBank set a limit of USD 1,000 a quarter when it resumed. Those limits have since risen: Nairametrics reported GTBank at USD 40,000 a quarter in September 2026. A foreign merchant charging Nigerian cards in dollars still sells into caps that banks can change. Paystack’s pricing page shows the alternative: it charges international cards in naira by default for Nigerian businesses, settles the next working day, and offers USD settlement into Zenith Bank domiciliary accounts as a public pilot. Ask each provider whether it can charge in naira for you, how it converts, and whether you need a Nigerian entity to use that route. Wallets such as OPay are worth asking about too.

What should you ask in Kenya?

Whether the provider holds a real M-Pesa connection. The Central Bank of Kenya counted 95.31 million registered mobile money accounts and 563,605 active agents in August 2026, and our Kenya guide shows how far M-Pesa leads. A checkout without M-Pesa misses most Kenyan shoppers.

Ask whose paybill or till number the money goes to: yours or the provider’s. Ask whether the provider can also pay out to M-Pesa for refunds, and how fast it settles in KES. Ask about Airtel Money as well: Paystack’s mobile money channel lists both Safaricom and Airtel Money in Kenya, with a charge of 1.5% per transaction there.

What should you ask in Ghana?

Which mobile money networks the provider reaches. Bank of Ghana data shows 85.8 million registered and 26.4 million active mobile money accounts in August 2026, with 1,046 million transactions worth GHS 518.8 billion that month, against GHS 354.1 billion a year earlier. MTN MoMo is one of several networks, and a checkout that offers only MTN turns away customers on the others.

Paystack’s channel shows what full coverage looks like: MTN, AT (Airtel/Tigo) and Telecel Cash, formerly Vodafone, with a charge of 1.95% per transaction. Ask each provider for the networks it covers today, its fee per network, its settlement time in GHS, and whether it supports refunds to the customer’s wallet. Our Ghana guide covers the tax and consumer rules.

What should you ask in Egypt?

Which wallets and cash methods the provider collects. Business Today Egypt, citing the Central Bank of Egypt, reports 60 million mobile wallets at the end of 2025, up from 15.2 million in 2019, with transactions of around EGP 4 trillion. Ask whether the provider collects from Vodafone Cash and the other wallets, whether it offers Fawry references for customers who pay in cash, and whether it accepts Meeza, the national card scheme, and InstaPay transfers.

Then ask how it charges and settles EGP, and what happens to settlement if foreign currency becomes scarce. Our Egypt guide and our article on account-to-account payments cover the background.

What should you ask in Morocco?

Which acquirer the provider works with since the market changed. La Vie Eco reports that Morocco moved to a multi-acquirer model on 1 February 2026. CMI is no longer an acquirer but processes for the new ones: seven payment institutions owned by its shareholder banks took over about 55,000 merchant contracts, alongside the independent acquirers Naps, Barid Cash and VPS. Merchants were allocated mainly by the bank holding their account. Bank Al-Maghrib capped domestic interchange at 0.65% in October 2024.

Currency matters as well. Le360 reports that from January 2026 the annual allowance Moroccan individuals can spend on foreign e-commerce rose to MAD 20,000. A merchant charging Moroccan cards from abroad sells into that allowance; one with local MAD acquiring does not. Ask whether the provider acquires locally, and see the CMI page and the Morocco guide.

Francophone West Africa. If you plan to sell in Côte d’Ivoire, ask about Wave, Orange and MTN, the three networks Paystack lists for its mobile money channel there.

How do the markets compare?

Market	Main online rails	First question for a provider	Watch out for
Nigeria	Bank transfer, Verve and other cards, wallets	Can you charge and settle in naira?	Bank caps on naira cards abroad
Kenya	M-Pesa, cards	Whose paybill or till receives the money?	No payouts or refunds to M-Pesa
Ghana	MTN MoMo, Telecel Cash, AT, cards	Which networks are live today?	MTN-only coverage
Egypt	Wallets, Fawry, Meeza, InstaPay	Which wallets and cash methods do you collect?	EGP settlement in a currency shortage
Morocco	Moroccan bank cards	Which acquirer do you use since February 2026?	The MAD 20,000 allowance on foreign charges

Worked example: a scorecard for three markets

Example figures, for illustration only.

An online electronics store enters Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana, and the provider names are placeholders. It expects 50% of the African volume from Nigeria, 30% from Kenya and 20% from Ghana. It scores each provider per market: 3 for local methods with local settlement, 2 for local methods through a partner, 1 for international cards only, 0 for no coverage.

Provider	Nigeria (50%)	Kenya (30%)	Ghana (20%)	Weighted score
A, a regional provider	3	2	2	2.5
B, a mobile money specialist	0	3	3	1.5
C, a cross-border card acquirer	1	1	1	1.0
A in Nigeria, B in Kenya and Ghana	3	3	3	3.0

A alone scores 2.5: 0.5 × 3 + 0.3 × 2 + 0.2 × 2. B alone scores 1.5, and C, with cards only, scores 1.0. Combining A for Nigeria with B for Kenya and Ghana reaches the maximum of 3.0, at the cost of a second integration and a second contract. C still has a role as the backup card route. The scorecard also records why each choice was made, which matters when it is questioned a year later.

What are the common mistakes?

• Asking about “Africa coverage”. Ask country by country, network by network and method by method.
• Charging Nigerian cards in dollars. Bank caps on naira cards abroad turn into declines; charge in naira where a provider can do it.
• Offering one mobile money network. In Ghana especially, customers on other networks need their own option at checkout.
• Ignoring settlement and repatriation. A low fee means little if local currency settles slowly or cannot leave the country when FX is short.
• Forgetting refunds and payouts. Mobile money and transfer refunds are new transfers; check that the provider can send them.
• Not reviewing after market changes. Morocco’s acquiring market changed in 2026, so a provider’s answer from 2025 may be out of date.

How does Omno help choose and run African providers?

Omno can put the providers you choose for each market behind one API, for Pay-In and Pay-Out. PSP eligibility rules by country, method, currency, customer group and customer verification level decide which providers may take each payment, routing chooses among them, and if a provider is unavailable or rejects the request, the payment moves to the next provider in the rule until one accepts. The dashboard compares approval and decline reasons by provider, method and country. The payment orchestration page shows how providers are configured.