Cross-border payment APIs in Africa: a builder's guide

The hard part of building a multi-market African product is not the code. It is moving money across borders. There is no pan-African equivalent of SEPA or ACH. Every country runs on its own dominant rail: M-Pesa in Kenya, MTN Mobile Money in West Africa, NIP bank transfers in Nigeria. Getting money from a Lagos business to a Nairobi supplier, or from an Accra marketplace to a Dakar vendor, means bridging those rails, converting currencies, and satisfying regulators in each country.

The Wycord registry currently lists eight verified cross-border payment APIs. Here is what each does and when to choose it.

The eight providers

Onafriq

Onafriq describes itself as Africa's "network of networks." A single API integration connects your product to roughly one billion wallets across 43 African nations, covering mobile money collections, disbursements, card processing, and agent banking. Developer documentation lives at apidocs.beyonic.com. The right choice when you need the widest mobile wallet reach without managing a separate integration for each country's network operators.

Wycord registry: https://wycord.com/resource/onafriq

Yellow Card

Yellow Card is the largest licensed stablecoin payments infrastructure on the continent, operating across 20+ African countries with support for 50+ local currencies. The company has processed over $10 billion in volume. If your settlement layer is a stablecoin rather than a local currency, Yellow Card is the most established option and publishes its licenses per country, which simplifies your compliance review.

Wycord registry: https://wycord.com/resource/yellow-card

Bani

Bani focuses on the business-to-business problem: paying African suppliers using local-currency rails with optional stablecoin settlement. It covers 16 countries: Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Tanzania, Rwanda, Cameroon, Benin, Zambia, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Republic of the Congo, and Brazzaville Congo. Supported currencies include NGN, GHS, KES, and XOF. Best fit for marketplaces and procurement platforms that need to pay out to sellers or suppliers across those markets.

Wycord registry: https://wycord.com/resource/bani

Eversend

Eversend started as a consumer remittance app and has opened its infrastructure as a developer API. It covers 18 African markets and 16 currencies, offering payouts, foreign exchange, and on/off-ramps in a single integration. The company has moved over $1 billion in volume since 2019 and has 1.6 million registered users. The developer product is aimed at builders who need to embed payouts, collections, and FX into a product without building their own currency conversion layer.

Wycord registry: https://wycord.com/resource/eversend

Fincra

Fincra is Nigerian payment infrastructure that handles collections, cross-border payouts, and currency conversions through a REST API. It also includes identity and BVN resolution, making it useful when your product has a Nigerian KYC requirement alongside the cross-border need. A natural fit for Nigerian businesses that are expanding to other African markets and want a single integration point rather than separate providers per country.

Wycord registry: https://wycord.com/resource/fincra

Notch Pay

Notch Pay is a pan-African platform that accepts mobile money, bank transfers, and cards through one REST API, with webhooks and SDKs for multiple stacks. Over 2,500 companies use it. The value proposition is simplicity: one integration for the major payment methods across African markets, aimed at startups that need broad coverage without the complexity of an enterprise-tier onboarding process.

Wycord registry: https://wycord.com/resource/notch-pay

Juicyway

Juicyway is a cross-border money platform that supports cards, bank transfers, crypto, and currency exchange. It is built for Nigerian businesses and founders who need multi-currency flexibility, including crypto as a payment or settlement option alongside traditional rails.

Wycord registry: https://wycord.com/resource/juicyway

Grey

Grey is primarily a consumer fintech: multi-currency accounts in USD, GBP, and EUR, virtual Visa cards, invoicing, and currency conversion. It is regulated by FINTRAC and FinCEN and operates in 15+ regions including Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, Egypt, and Morocco. Grey is not a B2B payment API in the traditional sense. It is relevant if you are building tooling for African freelancers or remote workers who need to hold and spend foreign currencies, rather than if you are running a business-to-business payment flow.

Wycord registry: https://wycord.com/resource/grey

What to use when

Situation	Best fit
Mobile wallet reach across 40+ African countries	Onafriq
Stablecoin settlement with per-country licensing	Yellow Card
Paying suppliers across 16 markets on local rails	Bani
Payouts, FX, and on/off-ramps in one API	Eversend
Nigerian startup expanding to other African markets	Fincra
Simple integration for mobile money, cards, and bank transfers	Notch Pay
Multi-method flexibility including crypto	Juicyway
Tooling for freelancers who receive USD/GBP/EUR	Grey

Three things to verify before you commit

Licensing in your target countries. Being available in a country and being licensed to transmit money there are different things. Yellow Card publishes its licenses publicly. For other providers, ask before you sign. Your legal exposure in a money-transmission error depends on whether your provider holds the right authorization in each jurisdiction.

FX spread and settlement timing. Most providers do not publish live FX rates on their marketing pages. Before committing, request sample quotes for the specific currency pairs your product needs, such as NGN to KES or GHS to XOF. A 1 to 2 percentage point spread difference compounds quickly at volume.

Collection vs. payout strength. Some providers are built primarily for one direction. Onafriq and Notch Pay are strong on collections. Eversend leads on outbound payouts and FX. Confirm the direction your use case primarily needs is well-supported in the provider's sandbox before integrating.

All eight verified cross-border payment APIs, with full registry details, are at https://wycord.com/apis.