COMESA Digital Payments Platform to cut cross-border costs and dollar reliance
LUSAKA/NAIROBI/CAIRO — The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) has rolled out a Digital Retail Payments Platform (DRPP) designed to let businesses settle cross-border transactions in local currencies—a move officials say will lower costs, ease FX bottlenecks, and lift SME participation in regional trade. COMESA digital payments platform went live on October 9, 2025, following pilots between Malawi and Zambia, and targets sub-3% transaction costs as usage scales.
From REPSS to the Checkout: What the New Rail Actually Does
The DRPP sits alongside COMESA’s Regional Payment and Settlement System (REPSS), extending instant, low-value, retail-grade payments beyond banks to merchants and consumers. According to COMESA, the platform is being built with two digital financial service providers plus an FX liquidity provider, and is aimed at micro, small and medium enterprises, women-led firms, and under-banked users—groups most constrained by dollar scarcity and high remittance fees.
Local-Currency Payments Could Lift VAT Compliance and Refund Speed
For tax administrations across North and East Africa, local-currency cross-border rails could raise VAT compliance and invoice traceability if payment messaging is mapped to tax invoice IDs and merchant KYC. In practice, linking DRPP transaction data to e-invoicing or e-receipt systems (where they exist) would help close carousel and under-reportingrisks, shorten refund cycles for exporters, and improve audit selection—especially for small traders that currently settle off-book. The bloc has signaled a cost goal below 3%, which—if achieved—would reduce the incentive to route payments through informal channels that escape tax.
How COMESA digital payments system fits with Africa’s payments puzzle (PAPSS, AfCFTA, card schemes)
The launch lands amid a broader shift to local-currency settlement under the Pan-African Payments and Settlement System (PAPSS) and AfCFTA initiatives. PAPSS is preparing an Africa Currency Marketplace for FX matching, which—if interoperable with DRPP—could deepen liquidity and stabilize pricing between smaller currency pairs used in COMESA trade. Meanwhile, global card networks are investing in African processing and data centers, expanding acceptance infrastructure that DRPP-connected wallets and banks could leverage at the point of sale. The direction of travel is clear: more rails, more local currency, more data, and—potentially—better tax visibility if governments hard-wire compliance into the rails.
What we know about the payment system’s rollout
Officials say the Malawi–Zambia corridor is the first live test, with other member states queuing up as integration work proceeds through the COMESA Clearing House. Near-term priorities include onboarding banks and mobile-money providers, standardizing KYC/AML checks, and ensuring FX liquidity to keep spreads tight. Key open questions remain: interoperability with PAPSS and domestic instant-payment systems; data-sharing with tax authorities (to enable invoice-level matching without compromising privacy); and the FX rulebook for managing mismatches when currency markets are thin.
Investor and policy take
From an investor’s view, DRPP lowers friction for regional retailers, logistics players, and cross-border platforms while dampening USD dependency risk in working capital. From a policy lens, it strengthens domestic resource mobilizationif paired with e-invoicing and digital receipt mandates, since authorities can reconcile payment trails with tax declarations in near-real time. The critical success factor is governance by design: common API standards, settlement finality rules, dispute procedures, and proportional data-access frameworks so that tax agencies get what they need—no more, no less—under due process.
Key details at a glance
- Launch: October 9, 2025 (initial pilot Malawi–Zambia)
- Scope: Retail-grade, local-currency cross-border payments; complements COMESA REPSS
- Target users: MSMEs, women-led businesses, under-served merchants and consumers
- Policy angle: Potential uplift to VAT compliance and refund integrity if linked to e-invoicing/e-receipting
