The fastest payout options for high-volume businesses in Africa

Apollo Eric, Founder and CEO of Bitlipa.

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Across Africa, high-volume businesses are scaling faster than the payout systems designed to support them. 

E-commerce platforms, logistics networks, digital marketplaces, and global brands now operate across multiple African markets simultaneously, processing thousands of transactions a day. 

Yet for many of them, success isn’t constrained by customer demand; it’s constrained by how quickly money moves.

AfricaNenda’s State of Instant Payment Systems report reveals that domestic payments have undergone significant evolution, with Instant Payment Systems (IPS) experiencing an average annual growth rate exceeding 37% since 2019 and surpassing $1 trillion in total value in 2024. But these gains have largely been domestic.

A Kenyan merchant can settle locally within seconds; a Nigerian platform can push funds instantly through NIP. However, the moment payouts cross borders, the speed advantage collapses.

This mismatch on fast domestic rails versus slow cross-market liquidity has become one of the biggest operational challenges for businesses processing payouts at scale.

From our experience at Bitlipa, payout delays for businesses processing thousands daily are not just a technical inconvenience, but also a strategic risk. When suppliers wait for settlements, operations slow. When gig workers or field agents are paid late, service quality tends to decline. When customer refunds take too long, trust erodes.

The impact is felt across three critical areas:

• Liquidity: Working capital gets trapped in transit when settlements take days instead of hours.
• Operations: Finance teams spend disproportionate time reconciling fragmented payment flows.
• Reputation: In payout-driven industries, trust is directly tied to how reliably funds move.

Fast payouts form the backbone of scale for merchants operating across multiple African markets. And while domestic rails have improved significantly, the challenge now lies in unifying speed across regions and currencies.

Africa’s traditional cross-border banking infrastructure was never built for the realities of multi-market digital commerce. Most settlement flows still depend on long correspondent chains, USD routing, and compliance processes managed by multiple intermediaries.

A payout that should clear from Lagos to Nairobi in minutes can take several business days and incur a cost of up to 8% once FX spreads and transfer fees are factored in.

Finance teams also face liquidity mismatches: a payout in GHS might require sourcing USD first, then converting into NGN or KES, depending on the destination market.

This is why businesses increasingly rely on fintech infrastructure to bridge the gap.

Providers such as Bitlipa, who specialize in cross-border FX and settlement APIs, are filling the structural gaps that banks cannot address. They don’t replace banks; they accelerate merchants past the slowest parts of the banking system.

Africa’s domestic payment landscape has made impressive strides. Mobile money remains the backbone of everyday commerce, USSD channels account for the bulk of mobile payments, and IPS networks across Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, and South Africa continue to modernize. Regional interoperability efforts, from PAPSS to GIMACPAY to TCIB, show growing alignment.

However, while these systems facilitate local payments more quickly and easily, they were not designed for the multi-currency, multi-market payout flows that high-volume merchants rely on.

This is the gap Bitlipa was built to solve. As an FX and settlement infrastructure provider, Bitlipa enables businesses to collect funds in any African market and settle centrally in USD or stablecoins, bypassing the slowest parts of correspondent banking.

By integrating payment rails across 15+ African markets, Bitlipa provides businesses with an integrated infrastructure layer for payouts. 

Finance teams gain real-time visibility into liquidity, predictable settlement timing, and the ability to move funds across currencies without depending on multi-day banking cycles.

Apollo Eric, Founder and CEO of Bitlipa, explains the company’s approach succinctly:

“Businesses are scaling faster than the liquidity systems supporting them. What we’re building is settlement infrastructure that moves as quickly as their operations, reducing friction and giving them full control across markets.’’

With this model, Bitlipa enables businesses to operate with the payout agility they need, whether paying suppliers in multiple countries, settling digital marketplace earnings, disbursing agent commissions, or processing cross-border merchant refunds. 

Africa’s digital commerce landscape continues to mature, but its cross-border payout infrastructure still lags behind the speed of domestic innovation. High-volume businesses need more than instant local payments; they need fast, reliable, and FX-aware payout systems that function across borders.

If your organization operates in multiple African markets and wants to eliminate payout delays, FX unpredictability, and liquidity friction, book a free consultation with Bitlipa and discover how one API can power instant, predictable payouts across Africa.