PawaPay, a UK-based fintech that provides mobile payments solutions to African businesses, has recorded a landmark 3 billion successful mobile money transactions, underscoring the rapid acceleration of digital payments across Africa.
The payment company disclosed that while the first billion transactions took four years to achieve, the second billion was processed in less than 12 months, and the third arrived in under nine months, highlighting a sharp increase in adoption and usage.
Announcing this feat the company wrote via a post on LinkedIn,
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“3 billion successful mobile money transactions. The first billion took 4 years. The second, less than 12 months. The third arrived in under 9 months. Behind those numbers are transport fares, remittances, subscriptions, salaries, school fees and millions of everyday life across Africa.”
Also commenting, PawaPay head of Sales, Joshua Breslin wrote,
“Its really hard to contextualize how many 3 billion is. It’s like doing 1 transaction, every single second for over 95 years. That many.”
PawaPay hitting 3 billion successful mobile money transactions in under 9 months, comes amid the significant rise in the adoption of mobile money across the African content.
According to GSMA “The State of The Industry Report on Mobile Money 2026”, in 2025, mobile money account rose by record numbers. There were 2.3 billion registered mobile money accounts, 268 million more than the previous year, the largest ever annual increase in absolute terms.
Active 30-day accounts rose by 15% to 593 million in 2025. This marks the highest annual percentage increase in monthly active accounts since 2021.
Notably, the mobile money industry crossed an important threshold in 2025, as more than $2 trillion flowed through mobile money wallets. While it took the industry 20 years to pass $1 trillion in annual transaction values, it only took four years from that point for this figure to double.
“Mobile money, as the principal means of digital payments on the African continent, is growing year on year,” Jamie Steell, PawaPay’s chief operating officer, said in an interview. “It’s like 20% up year on year consistently.”
Steell attributed the growth to a combination of demographic and technological factors, including a young population, falling smartphone costs, cheaper internet access, and the rapid digitisation of commerce.
“There is a digital environment growth that is happening, and that is driving growth of all our merchants that we see come onto our pipes,” he added.
Founded in 2020, PawaPay was established as a fintech infrastructure company focused on mobile money payments across Africa, building a single API that connects businesses to multiple telecom mobile money systems.
Through a single integration, the company manages operator connectivity, settlement, FX, reconciliation and regulatory coverage across its markets. It currently covers 85% of all mobile money in Africa, spanning 20 countries and counting.
Since 2022, PawaPay has also used stablecoins within its treasury operations to reduce settlement float and improve predictability across currencies. The company said it has processed more than €10 billion ($11.63 billion) in payments since launch.
Over the past six years, PawaPay has supported businesses using mobile money across sectors including remittance, transport, digital services and humanitarian payments. Organisations including Deriv and GiveDirectly rely on PawaPay to operate across multiple African markets through a single integration.
In 2025, the mobile money company announced partnership with Airtel Money Africa, Africa’s leading mobile money provider, to revolutionise cross-border remittances across the continent.
This collaboration extended pawaPay’s reliable payment infrastructure into seven key markets (Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Malawi, Gabon, Congo Brazzaville, and Tanzania), enabling seamless inbound transfers directly into the mobile wallets of over 161 million Airtel Money customers.
As mobile money continues to expand across Africa, PawaPay remains focused on helping businesses access local payment infrastructure through a single connection, enabling them to operate across markets without building payments operations country by country.