Ghana, Rwanda and Zambia have launched a pilot for a digital trade payment corridor, a key initiative designed to facilitate faster and cheaper cross-border transactions for businesses across the three nations. The announcement was made by Ghana’s Vice-President, Mahamudu Bawumia, on May 11, 2026, during a meeting with the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat in Accra, positioning the corridor as a cornerstone for enhancing intra-African trade under the AfCFTA framework.

Vice-President Bawumia described the corridor as a "critical milestone" for the continent, emphasising its role in moving Africa away from reliance on external correspondent banking networks. "This initiative is a major step towards realising the vision of a seamlessly integrated African market," he said. The pilot is part of a broader push by Ghana to champion the adoption of instant payment systems across the continent, a topic Bawumia also addressed at a separate event on May 9.

The corridor will leverage existing national instant payment platforms—Ghana’s GhIPSS Instant Pay (GIP), Rwanda’s Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system, and Zambia’s National Financial Switch—to create interoperable connections. This technical linkage is intended to allow businesses to make and receive payments in their local currencies within seconds, a significant improvement over current processes that can take days and incur high fees through traditional banking channels.

Ghana’s leadership in this pilot aligns with its recent selection by the AfCFTA Secretariat to host the headquarters of the AfCFTA Secretariat’s Guided Trade Initiative. The country has been an active proponent of digital financial integration, having previously launched the Universal QR Code payment system and the GhanaPay mobile money service. The success of the tri-nation pilot is seen as a potential blueprint for scaling the model to other African countries, directly supporting the AfCFTA’s goal of boosting intra-continental commerce.

The initiative addresses a long-standing barrier to trade in Africa: the high cost and complexity of cross-border payments. By enabling direct transactions between local payment infrastructures, the corridor aims to reduce transaction costs, improve settlement times, and enhance transparency for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This is particularly relevant for the agricultural and manufacturing sectors, where timely payments are crucial for supply chain efficiency.

While the pilot marks a significant step forward, its implementation will require close coordination between the central banks and financial service providers of the three nations. Observers note that challenges such as harmonising regulatory standards, managing foreign exchange liquidity, and ensuring robust cybersecurity will be critical to the corridor’s long-term viability. The involvement of the AfCFTA Secretariat provides a high-level platform to address these cross-jurisdictional issues.

If successful, the Ghana-Rwanda-Zambia corridor could serve as a practical proof of concept for the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), a continent-wide financial market infrastructure promoted by the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) and the AfCFTA. The pilot’s progress will be closely watched by other regional economic communities and central banks across Africa as they seek to operationalise the ambitions of the continental free trade agreement through digital finance.