Africa is building one of the fastest-growing instant payment ecosystems in the world. However, transaction speeds now move in seconds. Fraud detection frameworks still operate in minutes, hours or even days. This gap creates a dangerous asymmetry.
Payments are becoming real-time, while risk management often is not. As a result, real-time payments continue to outpace traditional control systems.
According to the State of Inclusive Instant Payment Systems in Africa (SIIPS) 2025 Report, 36 instant payment systems were live across 31 African countries. This number increased from 31 in the previous year. Therefore, the data demonstrates rapid growth in coverage and adoption.
Accelerating cross-border interoperability
Collectively, these systems processed approximately 64 billion transactions. They were worth nearly USD 2 trillion in 2024. This scale underscores the acceleration of real-time digital payments across the continent. In addition, the report highlights growing interoperability.
Nearly half of systems now link banks, mobile money platforms and FinTechs. Furthermore, Nigeria’s NIBSS Instant Payments became the first system in Africa to achieve a “mature” level of inclusivity.
Building on this momentum, pan-African initiatives such as the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) are accelerating cross-border interoperability. As a result, they increase the scale and complexity of real-time transaction flows. While these innovations create a faster and more connected financial ecosystem, they also introduce risk.
The same qualities that make instant payments powerful now create challenges. These include increasing transaction speed, growing network complexity and the rise of interconnected digital finance systems. Consequently, fraud detection windows shrink to mere milliseconds. In this environment, real-time payments demand equally real-time intelligence.
Speed without intelligence becomes a liability
The rise of instant and cross-border payments has created a perfect storm of speed, scale, and increasingly sophisticated fraud.
For example, fraudsters exploit identity vulnerabilities, synthetic IDs, SIM swap fraud and Advanced Account Takeover (ATO) techniques. They use these methods to bypass traditional controls. When payments settle instantly, institutions do not have hours or days to detect suspicious activity. Instead, they have milliseconds.
In South Africa, the real-time payments market is forecast to grow from USD 0.57 billion in 2025 to approximately USD 2.75 billion by 2030. This growth represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 34%. At the same time, consumers expect instant onboarding, frictionless transactions and rapid issue resolution.
Meanwhile, regulators are intensifying scrutiny around Anti-Money Laundering (AML), sanctions screening and Know Your Customer (KYC) obligations. Together, these pressures force financial institutions to rethink traditional compliance approaches. Consequently, they must adopt smarter, real-time risk intelligence capabilities that align with real-time payments.
Previously, compliance worked in a reactive and often siloed way. In many cases, teams treated it as a late-stage checkpoint. They brought it in near the end of product development to surface regulatory issues. Instead, organisations should position compliance as a strategic partner that shapes decisions from day one. That older approach no longer works.
As digital wallets connect to banks, FinTechs, and telcos via APIs, risk becomes shared and interconnected. Therefore, a single weakness can ripple across the entire value chain. In this environment, real-time insight is not about differentiation. Instead, it forms the foundation that enables innovation to scale safely within real-time payments ecosystems.
Inclusion and innovation with guardrails
Mobile money platforms and interoperable wallet ecosystems are reshaping how individuals and small businesses transact. As a result, they drive a shift toward more accessible and instant digital payments. Across Africa, users prefer digital wallets and account-to-account (A2A) payments over cards for everyday transactions. Surveys show that more than 80% of respondents use digital money transfers or instant payment services.
In addition, Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) is emerging within the broader digital finance expansion. This trend is particularly visible among younger, digitally active consumers. They use BNPL to manage larger purchases and cash flow challenges. According to TransUnion’s Consumer Pulse Study, a significant share of Gen Z and Millennial consumers in South Africa reported using BNPL services.
Furthermore, TransUnion Africa’s analysis of BNPL adoption emphasises the need for stronger guardrails. These include affordability checks, fraud controls, and transparent data visibility. Such measures balance innovation with consumer protection. They also reinforce the need for smarter compliance frameworks that integrate real-time risk analytics across the customer lifecycle.
We do not see compliance as a brake on innovation. Instead, the real question concerns timing and integration. Should institutions embed compliance into leadership thinking and product design from day one? Or should they introduce it at the last minute? Institutions that treat compliance as an enabler of sustainable growth will scale safely.
The narrowing decision window
Instant payments reduce settlement times from days to seconds. As a result, they dramatically shrink the window available to detect suspicious behaviour. In an era of AI-enabled fraud, including deepfakes and automated attack patterns, traditional static rule-based systems are no longer sufficient.
Speed is transforming financial services for the better. It lowers costs, increases access and supports financial inclusion. This impact is especially important in a continent as young and digitally engaged as Africa. However, speed without intelligence becomes a liability. Therefore, institutions must ingest richer data, apply predictive analytics and embed automation. These capabilities enable confident decision-making in real time, especially as real-time payments scale further.
This shift is driving a new compliance paradigm. It integrates identity verification, AML monitoring, sanctions and PEP screening, behavioural analytics and automated case management. Together, these elements form a unified, real-time risk framework.
The future does not depend on adding more manual checks. Instead, it requires orchestration. Institutions must combine identity, behavioural and transactional data into a unified, real-time view of risk. In this way, they can protect customers without compromising experience.
Designing Africa’s next chapter, smarter
Africa has an opportunity that few regions possess. It can design payment infrastructure for the digital age instead of retrofitting legacy systems. However, this transformation will require deeper collaboration.
Regulators, banks, FinTechs, trusted data providers and RegTech platforms must work together. They need to embed intelligence directly into payment ecosystems rather than layering it on afterwards. The lesson from other markets is clear. Speed without embedded intelligence creates systemic risk.
We are at an inflection point. If stakeholders build with intelligence at the core, they can achieve meaningful progress. By combining real-time data, automation and a proactive compliance culture, Africa can lead. It can create payment systems that are not only fast and inclusive but also resilient.
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| Mladen Čolić | Head | FinTech | TransUnion | mail me | | Bradley Elliott | CEO | RelyComply | mail me | |
