PawaPay, the leading pan-African payments aggregator, has announced a strategic partnership with global brokerage firm Deriv to streamline mobile money deposits across the continent.
The integration allows Deriv users to access local payment methods through a single, compliant connection to major mobile network operators (MNOs).
By leveraging PawaPay’s infrastructure, Deriv can now offer a localized experience that meets the specific financial habits of users across eight initial African markets.
Bridging the Local Gap for Global Growth
For platforms operating in Africa, mobile money is not just an alternative—it is the primary financial rail. However, scaling these services across borders often involves navigating fragmented regulatory landscapes and inconsistent operator connectivity.
Deriv selected PawaPay to anchor its African expansion strategy, seeking a solution that could handle high-volume growth without sacrificing reliability. Since the 2025 rollout, Deriv has reported:
- Increased Deposit Volumes: A measurable uptick in successful mobile money transactions.
- Higher Success Rates: Reduced transaction failures through PawaPay’s direct operator links.
- Predictable Settlement: Simplified FX and reconciliation processes across multiple jurisdictions.
“Mobile money is already deeply embedded in how people transact across Africa. The real challenge for companies expanding across multiple markets is running it reliably once volumes grow.” — Nikolai Barnwell, CEO at PawaPay.
A Unified Infrastructure
PawaPay’s platform simplifies the complexities of the African payment landscape into a single integration. This partnership provides Deriv with:
- Operational Resilience: Active monitoring and hands-on support during network instability to prevent user friction.
- Compliance & Settlement: Integrated management of local regulations and cross-border fund flows.
- Scalability: An architecture built to support high-velocity payment flows as Deriv’s user base expands.
Derek Swift, Head of Client Funding Facilities at Deriv, noted the strategic importance of the collaboration: “Their platform performs reliably in markets where payment infrastructure requires real local expertise. This partnership has opened markets that simply weren’t accessible to us before.”
The Big Picture: Why it Matters
As global fintech and trading platforms look to the African market, the “last mile” of payment collection remains the biggest hurdle.
PawaPay’s ability to aggregate 20+ markets into one API is becoming the standard for global companies looking to treat Africa as a single, cohesive digital economy.
Learn more about other African tech startups on Labari Insights, our data repository for tech in Africa: insights.techlabari.com
