Kotani Pay and DCSPay Partner to Expand Stablecoin Payment Connectivity Across Africa

Introduction

Kotani Pay and DCSPay have announced a strategic partnership designed to make stablecoin-funded payouts and fiat settlement more accessible across African markets.

The integration will combine DCSPay’s stablecoin payment infrastructure with Kotani Pay’s connections to domestic payment rails, allowing regulated exchanges and businesses to reach local recipients without building separate payout systems in every country.

The initial rollout will begin in Nigeria before expanding to Kenya, Ghana, Egypt, South Africa and Tanzania. This gives the announced expansion a six-country footprint spanning West, East, North and Southern Africa.

The partnership in numbers

The partnership brings together several significant capabilities:

• Six rollout markets: Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Egypt, South Africa and Tanzania.
• More than 15 African markets: Kotani Pay says its existing infrastructure provides access to local payment rails across over 15 markets through one API.
• Two major stablecoins: The conversion and payout infrastructure will support USDT and USDC.
• Multiple local payment channels: Payouts can be delivered through mobile money, USSD and other domestic payment methods.
• More than 50 years of payments experience: DCSPay is backed by DCS Group, which brings over five decades of experience in payments, compliance and regulated financial operations.

How the payment flow will work

DCSPay will provide the customer-facing stablecoin layer. Its responsibilities will include the wallet and checkout interface, user and merchant onboarding, compliance oversight and the initiation of stablecoin transfers for payout and settlement.

Kotani Pay will manage the local African leg of the transaction. It will receive stablecoin-funded payment instructions, convert USDT or USDC into the relevant local currency and route the funds through available domestic payment channels.

This division could simplify expansion for regulated exchanges and international businesses. Instead of negotiating, integrating and maintaining separate relationships with payment providers in every country, a business could use DCSPay for stablecoin collection and fund management while relying on Kotani Pay for local conversion and settlement.

However, the partners have not publicly disclosed transaction limits, pricing, expected settlement times, projected volumes or the precise timetable for the five markets that will follow Nigeria. These details will be important in assessing the partnership’s practical reach and competitiveness.

Connecting Asia and Africa through local payment rails

The partnership is also intended to strengthen payment connectivity between Asia and Africa.

A business collecting stablecoins through DCSPay could use Kotani Pay’s local infrastructure to pay suppliers, merchants, contractors and other recipients in African markets using payment methods available in their respective countries.

This model addresses a persistent cross-border payments challenge: moving value internationally is only one part of a successful transaction. The funds must still reach the recipient through trusted, accessible and widely used local channels.

The Financial Stability Board identifies high costs, low speed, limited access and insufficient transparency as four longstanding challenges affecting cross-border payments. Combining stablecoin settlement with domestic payout connectivity is one way payment providers are attempting to address these frictions at the infrastructure level.

What the integration means for businesses

For regulated exchanges, the partnership could extend their payout reach without requiring direct integration into every African payment network.

For merchants and other Web2 or Web2.5 businesses, it could provide a single route for accepting stablecoin payments, managing funds, converting value and settling into fiat.

For recipients, the practical value will depend on whether funds can arrive through familiar payment channels, in the correct local currency, within an acceptable timeframe and at a competitive total cost.

Kotani Pay CEO Felix Macharia said the partnership is intended to connect global capital with local African economies by combining stablecoins with domestic payment rails.

DCSPay Senior Director of Business Operations Sean Dong similarly described the integration as a way for businesses to expand into new markets without rebuilding their payment infrastructure country by country.

The bigger infrastructure story

The announcement reflects a broader shift in the stablecoin industry. The focus is moving beyond access to digital dollars towards the infrastructure required to use them in ordinary commercial transactions.

That infrastructure includes customer onboarding, compliance controls, liquidity, foreign-exchange conversion, local settlement and the final delivery of funds to recipients.

The strongest test of the Kotani Pay–DCSPay partnership will therefore be execution rather than geographic expansion announcements alone. Businesses will need clear information on fees, foreign-exchange spreads, settlement times, supported transaction sizes, compliance requirements, dispute-resolution processes and the availability of each payout method in every market.

If the planned rollout succeeds, the integration could create a practical bridge between global stablecoin liquidity and the domestic payment systems used across Africa. It could also demonstrate how specialised providers can divide the cross-border payment chain between a global stablecoin layer and market-specific local settlement infrastructure.