Africa’s Trading Platforms Face Growth Limits as Payment Infrastructure Becomes Key Bottleneck

As African trading platforms expand into multiple markets, payment infrastructure is increasingly emerging as the main constraint on their growth. Across the continent, many financial services providers still face difficulties in collecting local payments, converting currencies across borders, and settling transactions globally through a unified system. This fragmentation often results in slow, costly, and inefficient payment operations that limit scalability.

This challenge took center stage at Trading Festival Africa (formerly the Finance Magnates Africa Summit 2026) held in Cape Town, where industry stakeholders gathered to examine the future of trading and financial infrastructure across Africa.

During discussions with key market participants, including Exness, HFM, XM, ATFX, Weltrade, CXM, and JP Markets, a consistent message emerged: there is a growing need for more efficient and integrated payment systems. Many of these trading and forex platforms already rely on infrastructure provided by Kora to support parts of their payment operations. The event also highlighted rising interest in stablecoins and alternative settlement options as businesses look for faster and more cost-effective alternatives to traditional banking corridors.

According to Bruno Bawa, Lead for African Partnerships at Kora, payment infrastructure is the key factor determining which platforms can scale successfully. He noted that many brokers still lack the ability to process transactions seamlessly across multiple African markets at the same time, describing this connectivity gap as a major untapped growth opportunity.

The summit reinforced a broader industry understanding that sustainable growth in financial services depends not only on market expansion but also on the strength of underlying payment rails. Participants emphasized that faster, more reliable, and more interconnected systems are essential for the next phase of Africa’s financial sector development.

As demand for cross-border trading and financial services continues to increase, Kora is working to close these infrastructure gaps by expanding coverage across more African payment corridors. This approach enables forex brokers and trading platforms to operate through a single, integrated system, improving efficiency and supporting wider regional expansion.