No one company will make stablecoins mainstream, says Paga’s Tayo Oviosu

Stablecoins are gaining traction as a payment solution for African businesses, moving beyond their role in crypto trading, according to panelists at Moonshot by TechCabal in Lagos. The "The New Payment Backbone" session featured Mercy Emmanuel, stablecoin and blockchain vertical lead at Flutterwave; Tayo Oviosu, group CEO of Paga; and Ife Johnson, co-founder and CEO of Juicyway. The moderator, Vivian Mbene, represented Breet.

The key to stablecoins' potential lies in their speed, panelists agreed. Transferring money from Lagos to Nairobi often takes days when it goes through correspondent banks in New York or London, with delays for weekends and bank holidays. Stablecoins, digital tokens backed by currencies like the US dollar, bypass these intermediaries, facilitating transactions in seconds or minutes.

"Stablecoins essentially collapse this journey, as a high-speed train would," said Emmanuel. "Settlement happens in seconds; it happens in minutes."

Customers care more about the outcome than the technology behind it, according to Oviosu. They seek fast, low-cost payments that arrive when promised, often without realizing a stablecoin was used. Integrating stablecoins into everyday payment systems simplifies cross-border transactions, he added, without requiring users to learn anything new.

However, building this infrastructure will require collaboration. "No one company is going to solve it on their own," Oviosu emphasized. "There will be multiple companies offering specific solutions to different audiences."

Regulators have also recognized the potential of stablecoins. Only a few years ago, it would have been hard to imagine the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) supporting them, and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) would have welcomed the idea. Johnson stressed that companies must continue to build trust with regulators as the market expands.

Shared infrastructure is crucial for stablecoins to achieve their goal of faster, cheaper cross-border payments. For African businesses paying suppliers abroad, this means settlement in minutes instead of days.