Key Takeaways
- • VALR, Africa's largest crypto exchange by trade volume, has integrated with Onafriq, the continent's leading digital payments gateway, enabling direct mobile money funding in local currencies across 43 African markets.
- • The partnership grants VALR users access to over 1 billion mobile money wallets through Onafriq's network, allowing deposits to be settled in stablecoins and select cryptocurrencies without requiring traditional bank accounts.
- • Mobile money infrastructure is critical to African financial inclusion, with Sub-Saharan Africa generating approximately $190 billion in GDP from mobile money in 2023, and global mobile money volumes reaching 108 billion transactions valued at $1.68 trillion in 2024.
- • The integration addresses a structural barrier to crypto adoption in Africa by eliminating the need for users to access traditional banking rails, leveraging platforms like M-Pesa and MTN MoMo that already dominate domestic transaction volumes across the region.
- • This partnership represents a significant shift toward practical financial inclusion, enabling millions of underbanked Africans to access Bitcoin, stablecoins, and tokenized assets through payment methods already embedded in their daily economic activity.
Summary
VALR, Africa's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trade volume, announced on April 9, 2026, a strategic partnership with Onafriq, the continent's leading digital payments gateway. The integration enables VALR users across 43 African markets to fund their crypto accounts directly using mobile money in local currencies, significantly expanding access to digital financial services for millions of people previously excluded from traditional banking infrastructure.
Mobile money has emerged as the dominant financial infrastructure across Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in markets where traditional banking penetration remains limited. According to the GSMA's State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money 2025, global mobile money accounts reached 2.1 billion by the end of 2024, with the sector processing approximately 108 billion transactions valued at over $1.68 trillion in 2024—representing 20% year-on-year growth in transaction volume and 16% growth in value. In Sub-Saharan Africa specifically, mobile money contributed around $190 billion to regional GDP in 2023 alone. Platforms such as M-Pesa and MTN MoMo have become the dominant payment methods in their respective markets, with mobile money usage for domestic transactions far exceeding traditional credit cards and direct bank transfers in the majority of Sub-Saharan African countries.
The VALR-Onafriq partnership directly addresses this infrastructure reality by positioning mobile money as the primary on-ramp to cryptocurrency markets rather than treating it as a secondary payment method. Onafriq operates the largest digital payments network on the African continent, with access to over 1 billion mobile money wallets across 43 markets. Through this integration, VALR users can now fund accounts using local currencies including the Kenyan Shilling, Nigerian Naira, Ghanaian Cedi, and Ugandan Shilling, with deposits settling directly into stablecoins or select cryptocurrencies. This architecture eliminates a critical friction point for retail adoption: the requirement to maintain traditional bank accounts or international wire transfer capabilities.
The strategic implication of this partnership extends beyond transaction processing. By leveraging Onafriq's existing interoperable network infrastructure, VALR gains immediate access to payment systems already embedded in the daily economic activity of hundreds of millions of Africans. This approach positions crypto assets—including Bitcoin, stablecoins, and tokenized commodities like gold—as practical financial instruments rather than speculative assets, potentially accelerating institutional and retail adoption across a region where mobile money already represents the primary financial infrastructure.
Mobile money has emerged as the dominant financial infrastructure across Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in markets where traditional banking penetration remains limited. According to the GSMA's State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money 2025, global mobile money accounts reached 2.1 billion by the end of 2024, with the sector processing approximately 108 billion transactions valued at over $1.68 trillion in 2024—representing 20% year-on-year growth in transaction volume and 16% growth in value. In Sub-Saharan Africa specifically, mobile money contributed around $190 billion to regional GDP in 2023 alone. Platforms such as M-Pesa and MTN MoMo have become the dominant payment methods in their respective markets, with mobile money usage for domestic transactions far exceeding traditional credit cards and direct bank transfers in the majority of Sub-Saharan African countries.
The VALR-Onafriq partnership directly addresses this infrastructure reality by positioning mobile money as the primary on-ramp to cryptocurrency markets rather than treating it as a secondary payment method. Onafriq operates the largest digital payments network on the African continent, with access to over 1 billion mobile money wallets across 43 markets. Through this integration, VALR users can now fund accounts using local currencies including the Kenyan Shilling, Nigerian Naira, Ghanaian Cedi, and Ugandan Shilling, with deposits settling directly into stablecoins or select cryptocurrencies. This architecture eliminates a critical friction point for retail adoption: the requirement to maintain traditional bank accounts or international wire transfer capabilities.
The strategic implication of this partnership extends beyond transaction processing. By leveraging Onafriq's existing interoperable network infrastructure, VALR gains immediate access to payment systems already embedded in the daily economic activity of hundreds of millions of Africans. This approach positions crypto assets—including Bitcoin, stablecoins, and tokenized commodities like gold—as practical financial instruments rather than speculative assets, potentially accelerating institutional and retail adoption across a region where mobile money already represents the primary financial infrastructure.
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