Accept mobile money payments across Africa

Understand the mobile money landscape per country before integrating. Kenya is dominated by M-PESA. Rwanda and Uganda by MTN MoMo. Ghana by MTN MoMo, Vodafone Cash, and AirtelTigo. Nigeria is bank-transfer and card dominant - USSD is the mobile-first method.

For Kenya: integrate the M-PESA Daraja API via Safaricom's developer portal at developer.safaricom.co.ke. Obtain a Safaricom Paybill or Till number for your business. Use the STK Push API to prompt customers to pay directly on their phones.

For Rwanda and Ghana: integrate the MTN MoMo API via momodeveloper.mtn.com. Create a sandbox account immediately. You will need to apply for a production API key per country. The process is straightforward with clear documentation.

For Nigeria USSD: use Africa's Talking's USSD API to build payment-linked USSD menus. This reaches feature phone users and smartphone users with poor data connectivity.

If you need a single API for multiple countries: Flutterwave or Startbutton unify mobile money, cards, and bank transfers across multiple African markets under one integration.

Test your integration thoroughly in sandbox mode. Mobile money failures are real - build robust retry logic and clear user feedback messages for failed or pending transactions.

Handle the confirmation flow correctly. Mobile money is asynchronous - users get a phone prompt, then you receive a callback. Never assume payment is complete until your backend confirms the callback from the provider.

Set up clear reconciliation processes. Mobile money transactions need to be matched to orders in your system daily. Flutterwave and MTN MoMo dashboards provide downloadable transaction logs.