As Africa’s e-commerce sector is projected to reach $60 billion in value by 2030, industry players say the continent must first overcome deep-rooted challenges around payments, trust, and financial infrastructure to unlock its full potential.
This follows an analysis from Yellow Card, which notes that the continent’s e-commerce market, estimated at $30 billion in 2024 and projected to double by 2030, is a hotbed for fintech innovation.
With many shoppers and merchants located in regions underserved by traditional banking, payment APIs enable businesses to accept multiple payment methods, including mobile money, bank transfers, and cryptocurrencies.
As online marketplaces proliferate, fintech services have become essential to enable payments, build trust, and handle refunds or chargebacks securely.
However, while internet access and smartphone adoption continue to rise across key markets, converting that connectivity into consistent online transactions remains uneven.
According to e-commerce platform Jumia, customer behaviour still reflects a lack of confidence in digital systems.
In an interview with ITWeb Africa, Abdesslam Benzitouni, VP of public affairs and communication at Jumia, highlighted that the barrier still holding back e-commerce expansion across the continent is trust, not technology.
He explained: “Most consumers in our markets have been burned before, a payment made, a product that never arrived, no recourse, a scam. Until that experience is consistently fixed, no payment innovation closes the gap. Cash on delivery persists because it is the rational choice for someone who has learned not to trust the system.”
This reliance on cash-based transactions underscores the gap between access and usability. Even where digital tools exist, consumers are not always convinced they will work seamlessly or deliver the expected outcomes, he said.
Additionally, Jumia noted that a sizeable number of customers operate within tight income brackets, making them more cautious about online purchases.
At the same time, the challenges extend beyond consumers to merchants, particularly those looking to scale across borders. Fragmented systems across African markets mean businesses often face complex, costly processes when expanding regionally.
From a payments perspective, fintech firm Yellow Card points to structural inefficiencies in how financial systems across the continent interact.
“The payments layer is where digital commerce either works or breaks down, and across Africa it is still breaking down more often than it should. Operating across 20+ markets, Yellow Card sees this daily,” said Thelma Oshone Okorie, group data protection officer and privacy counsel at Yellow Card.
She noted that the most persistent gap is interoperability. “The continent has built impressive payment infrastructure in pockets; mobile money in East Africa, card networks in Southern Africa, bank transfer rails across West Africa, but these systems largely do not talk to each other.”
Okorie highlighted that although mobile money has played a transformative role in expanding financial access, it was largely designed for domestic use. As a result, its architecture limits its utility as a foundation for the next phase of e-commerce.
“Mobile money is fundamentally a domestic product. Sending value across a border, even between neighbouring countries with high mobile money penetration, typically means converting to cash, routing through a bank correspondent, or using a third-party bridge, all of which add cost, time, and counterparty risk,” noted Okorie.
She added: “For an e-commerce market that is increasingly regional in character, whether through pan-African marketplaces, diaspora-linked purchasing, or SME supply chain payments, that is not a gap that will close through incremental improvement to existing mobile money architecture.”
Consequently, this has led to growing interest in alternative payment rails, including blockchain-based solutions such as stablecoins, which are being explored as a way to streamline transactions across borders and reduce dependency on traditional banking systems.
“Adoption is real and growing, but it is still concentrated in specific corridors and use cases rather than spread evenly across the market. At Yellow Card, we see this in the profile of businesses actively using stablecoin rails: importers settling with suppliers in Asia or Europe, exporters receiving payment from international buyers, freelancers and remote workers collecting dollar-denominated income, and platforms facilitating inbound remittances linked to consumer spending.”
Ultimately, the challenge facing Africa’s e-commerce sector is no longer about getting people online - it is about giving them a reason to stay. Without trust, even the most advanced payment solutions will struggle to gain traction, and without interoperability, even the most connected markets will remain siloed, according to the experts.
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