Get Started with Payment Gateway Africa

Payment Gateway Africa is a payment gateway covering pay-ins, payment processing and payouts (where available for the method and project) across seven African markets. Every merchant follows the same onboarding sequence, regardless of the countries or wallets they plan to use.

Stage 1 is the application. Tell us about your company, your website or platform, the markets you want to reach and how you plan to integrate. The form on this page collects this information.

Stage 2 is the KYB review. Before we enable any project, we check who you are as a business and how you operate. The merchant verification and AML requirements page describes this process in general terms.

Stage 3 is the test project. You receive separate test keys and a project ID, share the URLs that should receive your postbacks, connect your checkout or backend, and confirm that your system correctly handles each status it receives.

Stage 4 is go-live. After your integration behaves as expected and your review is complete, you replace the test keys with production keys and the project starts accepting real customer payments.

We do not publish fixed durations for these stages. Timing depends on how complete your documents are, the markets you select and how quickly your team finishes the integration work.

A complete application leads to a more useful first conversation. Plan to share the following:

Your legal company name and a business email address. We use these to set up your merchant record and to contact you.

Your website or platform. This is where customers will pay, so we review it as part of the business check.

Your target countries. You can select any combination of Kenya, Egypt, Ethiopia, Senegal, Tunisia, Mali and Guinea. The full list of countries we cover shows the currency and local methods available in each market.

Your preferred methods. If you already know which wallets matter to your customers, list them. If you are unsure, the guide to mobile money wallets by country explains which methods are available in which market.

An indicative monthly volume and your integration preference. Approximate figures are enough. They help us frame your proposal and the factors behind your pricing quote.

Your current stage. Let us know whether you are exploring options, building now or ready to launch, so we can pace the conversation to suit you.

KYB stands for know your business. It is how we confirm that a merchant is a genuine, identifiable company with a business model we can support. Every merchant completes this review before going live. No market or method is exempt.

Expect to provide company registration details, information about owners and the people who control the business, and a clear description of what you sell and to whom. The AML and KYC policy sets out the principles behind these checks.

Some markets may require additional information because of local rules. If your selected countries need extra documents, we will tell you during onboarding. We prefer to raise these requirements early rather than after you have finished building.

How we handle the data you share is described in the privacy policy linked in the footer. Our security overview outlines our general security practices.

You can connect in two ways. The Hosted Payment Page sends customers to a payment page where they complete payment with their chosen method. The H2H API connects your backend directly to the gateway, so you control the flow from your own systems. These are two ways to connect, not two separate products.

Neither option is a native in-app SDK. The integration guide for hosted page and API connections compares the two options and walks through the setup.

Payment results reach your system through postbacks and webhooks. These notify you, the merchant, of each transaction's status. They do not send notifications to your customers. Your order logic should update only after a confirmed status arrives, not when the customer returns to your site.

Use the test project to cover realistic cases: successful payments, declined or abandoned attempts, and the statuses you receive for each one. Our support team can set the callback statuses you need for test transactions on request. A thorough test run makes the switch to production much smoother.

The full API reference and credentials are provided after merchant onboarding.

In production, three flows run separately. Pay-ins collect money from your customers. Payouts send money to recipients, where available for the method and project. Settlement moves your funds to you as the merchant.

Merchant settlements are sent the same day (T+0). This timing refers only to dispatch. When the money reaches your account depends on your bank's posting times.

Our overall transaction success rate is 85%, measured as successful transactions divided by all transactions. This figure covers the product as a whole. It does not apply to any specific country or method.

As your business expands, you can activate additional supported payment methods without any connection surcharge. Your connection price stays the same however many methods you use. For existing merchants, activating an already supported method can often be completed within one day.

Choosing your markets in advance makes the application more precise. Each market runs on its own currency and local methods:

Kenya (KES): M-Pesa. See the M-Pesa payment gateway in Kenya.

Egypt (EGP): mobile wallet payments linked to a phone number. See the Egypt wallet payment route.

Ethiopia (ETB): CBE Birr, M-Pesa (Ethiopia) and local transfers. See ETB collections in Ethiopia.

Senegal (XOF): Wave and Orange Money. See the Wave and Orange Money route in Senegal.

Tunisia (TND): D17 and Flouci. See the D17 and Flouci route in Tunisia.

Mali (XOF): Wave, Orange Money and Moov Money. See wallet collections in Mali.

Guinea (GNF): Orange Money. See Orange Money collections in Guinea.

Card payments are not included in this coverage. If you need a market that is not listed here, describe it in the message field so we can discuss your options.

Fill in the form below. Required fields are marked. The more detail you include about your markets, methods and stage, the more specific our reply can be.

If you would like to talk before applying, the contact page is the place for general questions. You can also return to the Payment Gateway Africa African payment gateway overview to review the product first.