By Napoleon Mugenzi
Kigali, Rwanda – When customers walk into Bisangwa Redempta’s shop in Kigali, she no longer asks which mobile wallet they use. Until recently, incompatible payment systems forced her to manage multiple mobile money codes. She sometimes lost sales when a customer’s preferred method was not available.
“Before eKash, I struggled with multiple mobile money codes and paying high transaction fees,” Redempta told reporters at the launch. “Sometimes customers would leave without paying because their wallet was not supported. Since I started using eKash, payments are instant, affordable, and I can receive money from anyone without complications.”
Rwanda’s new interoperable payment platform is more than a technical upgrade. The government is betting that homegrown financial infrastructure can push Africa’s economies from cash to digital faster than imported solutions.
The interoperability problem
Digital payments have spread across Africa over the past decade, but fragmentation has blunted their impact. Banks, mobile money operators and fintech companies built parallel systems that rarely connected. Someone using MTN Mobile Money could not easily send funds to an Equity Bank customer. Small merchants needed separate accounts and codes for each payment provider.
Rwanda’s eKash, which launched on 5 December at the Kigali Convention Centre, attacks this problem head-on. The platform links 22 financial institutions (commercial banks, microfinance providers and mobile operators MTN and Airtel) allowing instant transfers across networks that were previously walled off from each other. Transactions settle in under 15 seconds.
The early numbers show traction. “To date, 22 financial institutions have fully joined the platform, over 47 million transactions have been processed, more than 21 million users are registered, and transactions exceeding 203 billion Rwandan francs have been completed,” said Blaise Gasabira, chief executive of RSwitch, the state-owned company managing the system.
African engineering for African markets
What sets eKash apart from similar projects elsewhere on the continent is where it was built. African engineers developed the entire platform using the open-source Mojaloop framework, which the Gates Foundation originally created for emerging markets.
“For the first time on the continent, we are launching a fully African-built national payment solution,” said Dr Robert Ochola, who heads AfricaNenda, a nonprofit that works with central banks on payment systems. “This is proof that African talent is not only sufficient but powerful.”
The statement matters in a region where financial infrastructure has usually been designed and built by foreign consultancies and technology providers. Whether locally developed systems work better for African markets is still an open question, but Rwanda’s government thinks controlling payment infrastructure is strategically vital.
Dr Ochola went further, framing eKash as infrastructure for broader economic development. “Rwanda has once again proven that Africa can build world-class digital solutions for itself. eKash is not just a product; it is the foundation for financial inclusion, innovation in agriculture, health, MSMEs, and digital public services,” he said. He added that “Rwanda’s success will be replicated across other African countries in the coming years.”
The system comes as digital payment use climbs. During the first half of 2025, Rwandans completed 557 million mobile transactions, up 42% from the year before. Total transaction values jumped 58% to 13.7 trillion Rwandan francs, according to the National Bank of Rwanda.
What it means for business
For merchants, eKash simplifies operations. Instead of juggling multiple payment terminals or managing several mobile money agent relationships, businesses can accept funds from any connected institution through one QR code.
Tresor Ngassa, an early user, described the old friction: “Before eKash, I had to ask which network someone was using before sending money. Now I just send directly without worrying about the service provider. It saves time and avoids unnecessary charges.”
The platform charges low fees for transfers up to 2 million Rwandan francs (about £1,200), though exact pricing hasn’t been made public. Lower transaction costs matter particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises, which form Rwanda’s economic backbone but often work on tight margins.
Paula Ingabire, Minister of ICT and Innovation, said interoperability would unlock innovation for businesses that have struggled to connect to the broader financial system. “As a fintech ecosystem, one of our biggest challenges has been connecting to the broader financial system,” she said. “With eKash, transferring money across banks and mobile wallets becomes seamless, enabling us to reach more customers and provide more innovative financial services.”
The financial inclusion argument
Financial inclusion has become the standard rationale for digital payment projects across Africa. The logic is that cutting transaction costs and adding access points brings more people into formal financial systems, helping them save, borrow and invest more efficiently.
Jean Bosco Iyacu, chief executive of Access to Finance Rwanda, described the launch as a turning point. “eKash represents the future of inclusive finance in Rwanda,” he said. “It reduces the cost of transactions, expands access for small businesses, and strengthens trust in digital payments. We believe this platform will accelerate economic participation for millions of citizens.”
More than 400 million Africans still use only cash, according to AfricaNenda, which limits their ability to participate in digital commerce or build the credit histories that formal banking relationships create. Dr Ochola noted that this reliance on cash limits “access to secure and affordable financial services.”
Whether payment interoperability alone can overcome the deeper barriers to financial inclusion (income volatility, limited financial literacy) is debatable.
Looking beyond Rwanda
Rwanda’s Vision 2050 and Smart Rwanda Master Plan describe an innovation-driven economy where cash transactions are rare. eKash is one piece of that strategy, alongside investments in fibre-optic infrastructure, technology education and regulatory frameworks for digital services.
The platform’s backers (the Gates Foundation, GIZ and the Mojaloop Foundation) were recognised at the launch for their financial and technical support. They see Rwanda as a possible template for other markets.
Whether other countries can copy Rwanda’s approach depends partly on factors the technology can’t fix: political stability, regulatory coherence and the government’s ability to coordinate competing financial institutions. Rwanda’s relatively small size and centralised governance may have made implementation easier in ways that would be harder to repeat in larger, more fragmented markets.
What remains uncertain
Several questions hang over eKash’s future. The platform’s financial viability depends on transaction volumes generating enough revenue to maintain and upgrade infrastructure whilst keeping fees low enough to drive adoption. RSwitch hasn’t published detailed financial projections.
Security is another concern. As payment systems consolidate, they become bigger targets for fraud and cyberattacks. The platform works under National Bank of Rwanda regulations, but the details of its security setup haven’t been made public.
Competition from established mobile money operators, which have spent years building customer loyalty and agent networks, may also affect how quickly people adopt the system. Whilst interoperability theoretically helps all participants, it could hurt dominant players who previously benefited from locked-in customers.
There’s also the broader question of financial infrastructure sovereignty. As African countries build domestic payment systems, they must balance local control against the need for cross-border interoperability. Regional trade requires seamless international transactions, which purely national systems may struggle to handle.
For now, Rwanda has shown that African institutions can design and deploy sophisticated payment infrastructure. Whether that infrastructure delivers the promised economic and social benefits depends less on engineering than on how millions of individuals and businesses use it day to day.
The real test of eKash’s success won’t be transaction volumes but whether it genuinely expands economic opportunity for Rwanda’s 13 million people, particularly those in rural areas where financial services have been scarce. The platform’s architecture is built. The harder work of changing behaviour and building trust is just starting.
