Airtel Money Africa partners with pawaPay for seamless international remittances across Africa

Airtel Money Africa partners with pawaPay for seamless international remittances across Africa

Dubai, 07 August 2025: Airtel Money Africa, Airtel Africa’s mobile money arm, today announced an extended partnership with Africa’s largest mobile money payment service provider (PSP) pawaPay to enable seamless cross-border payments for licensed International Money Transfer Operators (IMTOs) across seven key Airtel Africa markets.

This collaboration officially launches pawaPay’s service for inbound remittances into Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Malawi, Gabon, Congo Brazzaville, and Tanzania. The partnership allows IMTOs to efficiently deliver funds globally directly to recipients' more than 161 million Airtel Money customers wallets, leveraging pawaPay’s renowned reliability, scalability, and 99.9% platform uptime. 

Building on five years of trusted collaboration in domestic mobile money, this expansion strengthens and simplifies Airtel Money Africa’s backend processes, using pawaPay’s robust payment service provider infrastructure, which processes over four million transactions daily. 

Airtel Money Africa CEO, Ian Ferrao, said: “We’re pleased to expand our partnership with pawaPay to advance international remittances across Africa. Their proven reliability and commitment to African consumers make them an ideal partner. This integration empowers International Money Transfer Operators to securely connect with Airtel Money’s growing footprint, delivering real-time payments that support financial inclusion and economic growth.” 

pawaPay CEO, Nikolai Barnwell, said: “Our mission is to simplify payments for businesses in Africa, and remittances are pivotal. Deepening our relationship with Airtel Money allows International Money Transfer Operators to leverage our world-class infrastructure for seamless cross-border payments.”

Remittances remain critical for millions of Africans, enabling family support, entrepreneurship, and financial inclusion. This partnership ensures secure, instant mobile wallet transactions, key to advancing Africa’s digital economy.

pawaPay will extend this capability to additional Airtel Money Africa markets in coming months.

 Enquiries 

Airtel Africa

Emeka Oparah

Vice-President Communications & CSR

Emeka.oparah@africa.airtel.com 

Hudson Sandler

Cosmas Butunyi, Eugene Ng’ang’a

airtelafrica@hudsonsandler.com 

About Airtel Africa

Airtel Africa is a leading provider of telecommunications and mobile money services, with operations in 14 countries across sub-Saharan Africa. Airtel Africa’s integrated offer provides national and international mobile voice and data services as well as mobile money services to 161.1 million customers. The company’s strategy is focused on delivering a great customer experience across the entire footprint and increasing digital and financial inclusion to transform lives across Africa, in line with our corporate purpose. For more information, please visit https://www.airtel.africa/ or connect with us on LinkedIn. 

About pawaPay

pawaPay is Africa’s largest mobile money payments company,  connecting large multinational businesses to over one billion consumers. With a simple, powerful API, it enables seamless, reliable payments, helping companies scale across Africa. Since launching in 2020, pawaPay has grown rapidly and is now processing over $4 billion per annum. For more information, please visit www.pawapay.io or connect with us via LinkedIn.

For more information, please contact: 

Guy Moreve

guy.moreve@pawapay.co.uk