Visa, M-PESA and Onafriq Launch Stablecoin Pilot in DRC
Visa, M-PESA, and Onafriq are piloting stablecoin-based cross-border payments in the Democratic Republic of Congo, marking one of the most concrete deployments of stablecoin infrastructure by major payments networks on the continent. The pilot extends Visa's previously reported stablecoin settlement activity in the CEMEA region into a named African market with established mobile money and switching partners.
DRC Stablecoin Pilot: the invisible plumbing nobody notices — until it works
The most important line in this story is buried in the technical detail: M-Pesa wallet top-ups in the DRC are now being settled in stablecoins behind the scenes, while the customer sees nothing different at all.
That invisibility is the whole point. The reason stablecoin experiments have mostly stayed experiments is that they ask users to change their behaviour. This one doesn't — it slips underneath the familiar mobile money interface and handles the messy cross-border settlement layer that conventional banking has always done slowly and expensively.
If the model holds, the DRC isn't just a test market. It's proof that stablecoins can improve payments infrastructure without requiring anyone to understand what a stablecoin is.
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- Visa, M-PESA and Onafriq Test Stablecoin Payments in DRC · techtrendske.co.ke · T2