The MANSA digital platform and Esca Finance have linked their payment rails to enable same-day settlement for cross-border business transactions across Africa, the companies announced on July 10, 2026. The integration connects MANSA’s digital identity and know-your-customer (KYC) registry for African entities with Esca’s local banking infrastructure, allowing corporate and institutional clients to initiate payments through MANSA for execution via Esca’s network.
The partnership is designed to address the persistent friction and delays in African cross-border payments, which often rely on correspondent banking networks that can be slow and opaque. By connecting a digital front-end platform to direct local banking access, the companies aim to provide a more predictable and faster service for businesses. MANSA, an initiative originally developed by the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), serves as a centralized repository of verified data on African corporates and financial institutions, intended to de-risk transactions and simplify due diligence.
Esca Finance, a payments technology firm, provides the underlying infrastructure to move funds directly into local banking systems in multiple African countries. The collaboration effectively creates a bridge between the digital identity layer and physical settlement, targeting a key pain point for intra-African trade and investment. The service is initially available for transactions between Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Zambia, with plans to expand to more markets.
The announcement comes amid broader industry efforts to modernize Africa’s financial architecture, particularly for business and wholesale payments. While consumer-focused mobile money networks like M-Pesa have achieved widespread adoption, corporate cross-border flows have often remained reliant on traditional, slower channels. Initiatives such as the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), promoted by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), share a similar goal of facilitating instant, low-cost clearing across the continent.
In a separate development highlighting the parallel evolution of Nigeria's foreign exchange landscape, a company called HyperFX launched an on-chain foreign exchange engine on July 9, 2026. That platform aims to provide an alternative to Nigeria's informal AbokiFX market by using stablecoins for settlement, targeting a different segment of the market focused on currency conversion rather than business payment rails. The MANSA-Esca link operates within the formal banking sector, focusing on settled fiat currency payments rather than crypto-assets.
Analysts note that the success of the MANSA and Esca partnership will depend on adoption by businesses and financial institutions, as well as the stability of local banking systems in the operational countries. The service’s value proposition hinges on its ability to consistently deliver same-day settlement, a significant improvement over the multi-day waits common in current correspondent banking flows. The companies have not disclosed specific transaction volume targets or pricing details for the newly linked service.