PawaPay and Deriv expand access to mobile financial services across eight African markets

African fintech platform PawaPay has strengthened its partnership with Deriv, enabling mobile payments across eight African markets through a single integration. The partnership, which began in 2025, supports connectivity with major mobile payment operators and aims to expand into additional markets over time.

Deriv chose PawaPay to provide mobile payment services without compromising location or reliability, even with an increasing number of transactions. Since launch, Deriv has seen a measurable increase in mobile transactions, accelerated by coordinated promotional and educational campaigns. The reliability of the integration has also reduced the number of failed transactions and ensured predictable settlements—key factors for the success of a payment product.

PawaPay connects businesses with local payment methods across 20 African markets, handling processing, clearing, currency transactions, and reconciliation for large-scale global platforms. This allows Deriv users to fund their accounts using the mobile wallets they use every day.

"Mobile payments are already deeply ingrained in how Africans conduct transactions. The real challenge for companies expanding into multiple markets is ensuring the reliability of these systems as transaction volumes grow. Our job is to ensure payment predictability so that platforms can focus on their customers rather than managing operational details." – Nikolai Barnwell, CEO of PawaPay "Our partnership with PawaPay has been instrumental to Deriv's expansion in Africa. Their platform has proven to be reliable in markets where volatility is a real operational risk, and their technical support team is quick to resolve issues. The integration has opened up markets for us where we previously had no viable local payment options." – Derek Swift, Director of Client Financing Instruments, Deriv

"Mobile payments are already deeply ingrained in how Africans conduct transactions. The real challenge for companies expanding into multiple markets is ensuring that these systems remain reliable as transaction volumes grow. Our job is to ensure payment predictability so that platforms can focus on their customers rather than managing operational details."

– Nikolai Barnwell, CEO, PawaPay

"Our partnership with PawaPay has been instrumental in Deriv's expansion into Africa. Their platform has proven itself in markets where volatility poses a real operational risk, and their technical support team is quick to resolve issues. The integration has opened up markets where we previously had no viable local payment options."

– Derek Swift, Director of Client Financing Instruments, Deriv

Presence in eight markets and planned further expansion underscore the importance of location, reliability, and sustainable expansion of mobile payment services across Africa.