I&M Bank Goes Live on Pan-African Payment & Settlement System (PAPSS) to Enable Instant Local Currency Cross-Border Transactions

Kenya’s banking sector has achieved another milestone in intra-continental financial rail integration as I&M Bank officially went live on the Pan-African Payment & Settlement System (PAPSS) network. 

PAPSS—developed by Afreximbank in collaboration with the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat—serves as a centralized financial market infrastructure enabling real-time cross-border payments and settlements among participating African economies. By onboarding onto PAPSS, I&M Bank provides its retail, corporate, and institutional clients with a direct mechanism to send and receive funds across participating African nations instantly. 

The operational rollout delivers five core transactional advantages designed to streamline cross-border trade and remittances:

Instant Local Currency Settlement: Transactions are processed in real time using local African currencies, eliminating the requirement for third-party FX conversions (such as routing through US Dollars or Euros). 

Drastic Cost Reduction & Speed: Eliminates offshore correspondent banking chains, significantly lowering transfer fees and cutting settlement times from days to seconds. 

Simplified Commercial & Academic Payments: Enables seamless regional trade settlements for enterprises, as well as convenient cross-border school fee payments for parents and guardians with students enrolled across participating African countries. 

By bypassing foreign currency clearing centers, the integration strengthens liquidity for East African traders and accelerates the operationalization of the AfCFTA single market framework. 

Why This Matters

For the regional banking market, I&M Bank’s PAPSS integration serves as an Engine for Intra-African Financial Interoperability and a Catalyst for Cross-Border Enterprise Trade Liquidity. Facilitating instant local currency settlements removes FX liquidity friction, slashes transaction costs for MSMEs, and boosts trade velocity along regional commercial corridors. 

From a macroeconomic perspective, the development underscores the Sovereignty of Pan-African Financial Rails and Currency COMMAND. Decoupling intra-African trade from third-party global reserve currencies enables African financial institutions to retain FX capital within the continent, stabilize domestic exchange rates, and command continental payment infrastructure on self-reliant terms. 

Opportunities

B2B Cross-Border Settlement, Treasury Management & AfCFTA Trade Lines: High commercial scope for exporters, importers, and regional conglomerates to utilize I&M Bank’s PAPSS rails for instant local currency trade clearing. 

FinTech Payment Aggregation, Merchant APIs & Cross-Border Rails: Substantial demand for payment service providers (PSPs) and fintechs to integrate API connections onto PAPSS-enabled bank accounts for seamless regional e-commerce. 

Cross-Border Education, Medical Remittances & Value-Chain Clearing: Openings for educational institutions, healthcare providers, and logistics firms to accept direct local-currency tuition and service payments across participating African states. 

FX Risk Management, Multilateral Settlement Advisory & Corporate Banking: Project opportunities for financial consultancies and treasury advisers to optimize corporate working capital strategies under instant local currency settlement models. 

Commerce, Strategy, and Sovereignty — Extractions, Insights, and Impact.

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