On some days this year, it felt like all we did was chase bugs, terminals and timelines. On others, it felt like we were watching the future arrive in real time, one tap at a time.

Somewhere between those two extremes is the real story of enabling contact payment at CashAfrica in 2025

Re‑introducing what we’re building

CashAfrica exists to make contactless payments work reliably in African realities:

  • CashTap – our contactless payment API that powers tap‑to‑pay directly from bank and fintech apps and existing POS devices. 
  • CashMobile – our tap‑to‑pay app that lets everyday users tap and pay in about a second. 

In short, you own the customer relationship. CashAfrica owns the rails that make “tap and go” feel as simple as it looks. 

2025: Scaling what already works

PalmPay × CashAfrica: From 1,000 POS to a network effect

Together with PalmPay, we launched an initiative to roll out tap-to-pay across an initial 1,000 POS terminals in Nigeria, with a clear pathway to scale across a 300,000-terminal network as performance benchmarks are met.

What matters most isn’t the headline number, but what it represents: contactless operating at scale, in everyday environments, under real conditions.

A global signal: DraperU and beyond

In 2025, CashAfrica joined a U.S.-based accelerator and received backing from DraperU Ventures, led by Tim Draper’s team.

For us, this was beyond the capital. It was validation that decentralised contactless infrastructure for markets like Nigeria is a global-scale problem worth solving properly, not patching around.

Building in public and being seen

We leaned into building in public, sharing learnings, progress, and friction points openly. The ecosystem noticed, with features and mentions across platforms like TechCabal and Techpoint Africa, helping bring more visibility to the infrastructure layer of payments that often goes unseen.

The numbers behind the story

In 2025, a few numbers have told the story in sharper relief:

  • 30% average monthly growth in tap‑to‑pay payments – consistent compounding across pilots, events and merchant rollouts, not just a one‑off spike. 
  • 100,000+ taps completed – real transactions processed across pilots, live merchants and event environments, all riding on our rails. 
  • 30M+ ecosystem wallet value unlocked – contactless infrastructure powering tens of millions in wallet capacity across partners and use cases. 
  • 5M+ people reached via awareness and education campaigns – through press, events, social content and on‑ground activations that made “tap to pay” feel familiar, not foreign. 
  • ISO 27001 certified – a formal confirmation that our information security management systems meet global standards, reinforcing the risk posture banks and fintechs expect from a core infra partner. 

Taken together, this is what “infrastructure getting real” looks like: not just features shipped, but usage, scale, security and awareness moving in the same direction.

What 2026 looks like from here  

For us, 2026 is about doubling down on scale.

Contactless payment is gaining momentum, from isolated deployments to shared rails that multiple players can build on with confidence. As adoption accelerates, it is becoming increasingly important for payment institutions to recognise that their edge is not in rebuilding contactless infrastructure from scratch, but in partnering with specialist providers whose rails already work and adapt to local realities without friction.

Our work in 2026 is simple: strengthen the rails, support partners as they grow on top of them, and make contactless feel less like a feature, and more like a standard.

Explore the full 2025 story

This post is just the highlight reel. The full story, including more details on use cases, partner journeys, product milestones and where we’re heading next, is captured in our 2025 at CashAfrica brochure.

Explore our 2025 brochure to dive deeper into the numbers and narratives behind our growth, see how partners like PalmPay and others are building on our rails and get a clearer view of how CashTap and CashMobile can plug into your own roadmap.

If you’re a bank, fintech, developer or enterprise thinking about contactless in 2026, this is our invitation: take a closer look at the rails we’ve been quietly laying, and imagine what we could build together on top of them.

The rails are ready. The devices are in your customers’ hands. Adoption is accelerating. Join us to build the future of contactless payments in Africa.

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