The surge of cross-border payment firms in Africa: Implications for entrepreneurship and SMES

This paper looks into the factors surrounding the surge of cross-border payment firms across Africa and their consequences for entrepreneurship and SMEs, underlining the opportunities and challenges brought by these systems. Grounded in a systematic review of available literature, research identifies, among others, key drivers like financial inclusion and the digital economy, while exploring regulatory fragmentation, infrastructure deficits, and cybersecurity risks as main barriers. The findings indicate that, though cross-border payment systems have dramatically improved access to foreign markets and innovation, the benefits for SMEs are not uniform. Targeted interventions, which would require a constitutive policy framework, are urgent for all businesses to be fully joined into the digital economy and hence fully benefit from these financial innovations.