African businesses may find a more practical use for stablecoins

Bitcoin is still the first thing that comes to mind when crypto is mentioned. But for an African business that needs to pay a supplier in another country, receive money from an overseas customer or move dollars between markets, Bitcoin is not always the obvious choice. Stablecoins could be more useful. Dollar backed stablecoins are designed to stay close to the value of the US dollar. That makes them different from Bitcoin, where the value can move sharply while a business is waiting for a payment to clear. The stablecoin market has also grown far beyond crypto trading. Brookings estimates that stablecoin supply has reached around $273 billion in 2026, with annual transaction volumes of about $10.9 trillion. For African businesses, the interesting part is what this could mean for payments.

Moving money between African countries

Cross border payments remain a headache for many businesses. An SME buying equipment from another country may have to deal with foreign exchange, bank charges and several intermediaries before the supplier receives the money. The same problem applies to businesses selling services outside their home market. A small company might receive a payment in dollars, only to wait for it to clear before converting it into local currency. Stablecoins offer another route. A dollar backed stablecoin can be sent from one digital wallet to another without following the same path as a traditional bank transfer. The recipient can then keep the digital dollars or convert them into local currency through a provider that supports the transaction.

It does not remove fees or currency conversion, but it can change how the payment gets from one side to the other. This is where the stablecoin story becomes more interesting. Visa is testing stablecoin settlement in the Democratic Republic of Congo with M-Pesa Africa and Onafriq. The test is looking at stablecoins for cross-border mobile-money transactions, including M-Pesa wallet top-ups. The customer does not necessarily have to know that a stablecoin is involved. They can continue using a mobile-money wallet while the stablecoin is used in the settlement process behind the service. That is very different from asking customers to download a crypto wallet and buy Bitcoin.

SMEs have more reason to look at it

Large companies have more ways to deal with international payments. They can maintain foreign-currency accounts, negotiate banking rates and employ people to manage their money across markets. A small business has fewer options. For an SME, a $5,000 payment to a supplier can be a significant transaction. So can receiving $2,000 from an overseas customer. If a payment provider can move that money more quickly or reduce some of the costs involved, it is worth paying attention to. The same applies to African freelancers, online businesses and companies selling services internationally. They are already dealing with customers and suppliers outside their home markets.

The dollar is the bigger attraction

There is a reason stablecoins could make more sense for businesses than Bitcoin. A business paying a supplier $10,000 next month needs that money to still be worth $10,000. It does not want to discover that the value has dropped because the crypto market moved. A dollar backed stablecoin is designed to stay around $1. That makes it closer to a digital dollar than an investment. For businesses operating in countries where local currencies can be volatile, that can be useful. The company is not buying the stablecoin because it expects its price to rise. It is using it to move or hold dollars.

Banks still have a role

Stablecoins do not remove the need for banks. Businesses still need local currency to pay salaries, rent, taxes and suppliers. At some point, a stablecoin may need to be converted into rands, naira, shillings, cedis or another local currency. That means banks, fintechs, mobile-money operators and other payment companies can still sit between the digital dollars and the customer’s everyday finances. There are also regulatory differences between African countries. That makes it harder for fintechs to offer the same stablecoin service across the continent. So there is still a lot that needs to be worked out. This may be the part of the stablecoin story that matters most.

The person receiving money does not necessarily need to know what technology moved it. They care that the money arrived. The business sending it cares about the cost and how long it takes. Visa’s work with M-Pesa Africa and Onafriq is interesting for exactly this reason. The stablecoin can sit behind an existing payment service instead of becoming the payment service itself. That could be where stablecoins find a real use in Africa. Not by turning business owners into crypto traders, but by giving them another way to move dollars across borders. For African fintechs, that is probably a much easier problem to solve than convincing businesses to start speculating on Bitcoin.