More than $2 trillion (Sh260 billion) in mobile money transactions passed through services globally during 2025. Eva Nyamori’s Sept. 29, 2026, opinion article argues that the systems connecting payments to businesses and governments matter beyond the payment apps themselves. The GSMA State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money 2026 put transaction growth at 23 per cent from 2024. The article doesn’t report company profits, worker wages or how that money was distributed between users and providers.
Nyamori is the Global Chief Strategy Officer at CapitalPay International. Her article says the economic question isn’t only whether people can make digital payments, but whether those payments connect with wider business and government systems. Those connections, she argues, can make transactions easier for businesses to track and reconcile, support government administration and visibility, and help consumers participate in formal economic activity.
The Infrastructure Behind the Transaction
The article describes Africa’s digital economy as including mobile money, digital banking, e-commerce platforms, fintech applications and online marketplaces. Payment infrastructure is a less visible layer, it says, but it may be just as important. A digital payment creates a transaction record; linking that record to wider systems can make it useful for business tracking and reconciliation.
Disconnected government processes can send transactions through several administrative steps before reconciliation and reporting. Each manual step creates opportunities for delay, error or incomplete information, according to the article. Digitising a payment is one step. Connecting it to the wider process is another.
The article identifies no specific government program, company contract or public spending figure. It also doesn’t describe a change in ownership or say which private firms would capture revenue from connected payment systems. Its account focuses on the potential administrative and economic uses of payment records, rather than on measured profits or the distribution of gains.
Different Economies, Different Systems
African economies are diverse, Nyamori writes. Many businesses operate informally, consumers use both cash and digital payment channels, and connectivity and financial access vary within and between countries. Digital payments alone can’t resolve those challenges, the article says, though they can help connect economies.
Kenya’s payments ecosystem has developed differently from Tanzania’s, while South Sudan faces different institutional and economic conditions. The article says infrastructure should reflect those local realities while connecting to wider financial systems. African technology companies working across multiple markets can draw on experience in different environments, it adds, while adapting implementation to local requirements.
Nyamori’s stated objective is to identify which principles can transfer across markets and which need redesign. The article names interoperability, appropriate regulation, security, trust and designs suited to African markets as requirements for payment systems that work across broader economic processes. It doesn’t specify a regulatory proposal or describe an enacted government measure.
The Limits of the Promised Gains
Greater visibility over transactions can support business management, the article says, while more efficient payment processes can reduce administrative friction. Digital records can improve information for decision-making, and easier access to formal payment systems can widen participation in the formal economy. Nyamori cautions that these outcomes aren’t automatic: they depend on infrastructure, adoption, regulation, trust, system design and implementation.
The article includes no interviews with workers, consumer testimony, union statements or accounts of organized resistance. It also provides no evidence that payment infrastructure has already delivered the promised gains to particular workers, businesses or governments. Its central argument is that Africa’s digital economy won’t be built only through phone applications, but through the infrastructure operating behind them—systems linking consumers, businesses, governments and financial institutions.