Accra, Ghana//-MTN Group, Africa’s largest mobile network operator, today urged African leaders to replace their fragmented national systems with an integrated regional digital finance architecture to boost cross-border payments.
The President and CEO of MTN Group, Ralph Mupita, who made the call on the first day of the 3i Summit Africa 2026 held in Accra, was emphatic that cross-border payments would reduce challenges in trade and currency exchange.
Although African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) and other financial infrastructure actors have already laid the foundation for more efficient cross-border payment systems, the continent is yet to wholly embrace the trans-border payments.
Mr Mupita was confident that all hope was not lost. The future of African commerce lies in seamless financial interoperability across countries, enabling truly borderless digital transactions.
Speaking virtually at a fireside chat with Bernard Avle, a leading broadcast journalist at the summit, Mr Mupita observed that the continent is on the verge of a major leap in financial inclusion, with digital platforms increasingly reshaping payments, credit systems, remittances, cross-border trade, among others.
Africa has already recorded significant progress through mobile money systems, which have evolved from simple peer-to-peer transfer tools into large-scale financial ecosystems now contributing to global transaction volumes estimated at around $2 trillion.
Touching on the topic: ‘The Future of Digital Finance in Emerging Markets’, the MTN Group boss said that the next phase of growth would move beyond USSD-based mobile money services toward a more advanced, smartphone-driven digital finance ecosystem.
This he explained would integrate nano-lending, digital banking, remittance services, and emerging technologies such as stablecoins and crypto-enabled solutions for benefits of the rising youth population on the continent.
The shift as a structural transition from mobile money to full-scale digital finance represents a powerful engine for economic growth and financial inclusion across the continent.
Mr Mupita also used the platform to throw more light on the critical role of telco-led platforms in democratising and modernising access to financial services.
By leveraging extensive distribution networks, MTN and other telecommunications operators have importantly lowered the cost of reaching underserved populations—something traditional financial institutions have struggled with for many years to achieve at a large scale.
This expansion has helped bring millions of Africans into the formal financial system, particularly benefiting the continent’s rapidly growing youth population and supporting broader economic participation.
Mr Mupita drew parallels with India’s digital transformation journey and that of Africa, and concluded that Africa has a similar opportunity to harness digital finance to boost productivity, deepen trade, and create jobs at scale.
On fraud and digital scams, he joined his colleagues and industry operators to call for robust regulatory frameworks to build trust in digital financial systems on the African continent.
Mr Mupita was quick to allay fears that artificial intelligence (AI) presents major opportunities in fraud detection, credit scoring, and customer service optimisation rather than taking over people’s work.
He, however, warned that AI deployment should be guided by responsibility and strong oversight to preserve trust in the financial ecosystem.
While AI will significantly enhance efficiency and innovation, human supervision will remain indispensable in safeguarding the integrity of digital finance systems, Mr Mupita argued.
