Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Johnson Pandit Asiama, has revealed that steps are being taken to integrate payment systems across Africa to strengthen cross-border trade and improve financial transactions within the sub-region.

He said enhancing interoperability among African payment platforms is essential to promoting economic growth, supporting businesses and advancing the continent’s broader financial integration agenda.

Speaking at the 2026 ACI World Congress under the theme, “Elevating Markets, Empowering People,” Dr Asiama noted that while progress has been made in other areas of financial cooperation, payment and settlement systems across the continent still face major challenges.

“What is lagging behind is the payments and settlements aspect. Someone says it is cheaper for example to send money across the oceans than it is to send money to another country within the sub-region. So yes we have a lot of work to do to support our people,” he stated.

According to the BoG Governor, several initiatives are currently being implemented to improve cross-border transactions and make payments across African countries faster, cheaper and more efficient.

“PAPSS is doing its bit, we also have some other related innovations that are underway. At the level of central banks we are supporting these. We do realise that integrating payment systems across the sub-region is the right way to go indeed,” he said.

Dr Asiama further disclosed that the Bank of Ghana is working closely with the African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat to explore the use of stablecoins and other digital financial technologies to facilitate regional trade and payment systems.

“For us we are working with AfCFTA for example because we realise we can use stablecoins for example to address the cross-border payment issue which will support the work of AfCFTA. We are working on some of those fronts. We did a sandbox environment to start with so as to be able to establish those platforms to support greater integration across the sub-region,” he added.

He maintained that deeper collaboration among African central banks and financial institutions would be crucial to achieving seamless regional payment systems and unlocking the full potential of intra-African trade.