Circle has announced a partnership with Sasai Fintech to expand the use of its USDC stablecoin across African payment corridors. The collaboration, announced on Tuesday, aims to integrate USDC into Sasai’s existing payments infrastructure, which covers cross-border transfers, enterprise payments and consumer wallets. The companies say the goal is to reduce transaction costs and settlement times for users across the region.
Sasai operates digital payments services across multiple African markets and will connect its platform with Circle’s onchain infrastructure. The two companies plan to explore practical applications for USDC using Circle’s full-stack platform. This comes as stablecoin usage in Africa grows alongside rising demand for cross-border payments and mobile-first financial services.
The partnership addresses a persistent challenge in the region: high remittance costs. The United Nations has set a target of reducing average remittance transaction costs to below 3% globally, but costs remain elevated in many parts of Africa. A June 2025 report from the World Bank identified Sierra Leone, Uganda, Angola, Botswana and Zambia as among the economies with the highest transaction costs, all exceeding 7% in 2023.
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said the company is focused on high-growth payment corridors in emerging markets. Cassava Technologies Chairman Strive Masiyiwa said the integration could broaden access to digital financial services for both businesses and consumers. According to data from DefiLlama, USDC is the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization at approximately $78.6 billion, behind only Tether‘s USDT at around $184.1 billion.
Crypto adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa has accelerated sharply, rising 52% in the twelve months through June 2025, with the region receiving more than $205 billion in onchain value, according to a September report from Chainalysis. Nigeria accounted for over $92 billion of that activity, followed by South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia and Ghana. Usage has been largely driven by remittances, cross-border payments and demand for hedging against currency volatility.
The growth is drawing broader interest from crypto companies. Earlier this month, Blockchain.com entered Ghana as part of an African expansion, following more than 700% growth in brokerage transaction volume in Nigeria since the company launched retail services there. Regulators are also moving to formalize the sector, with Ghana’s Securities and Exchange Commission approving 11 crypto trading platforms to enter a regulatory sandbox under the newly adopted Virtual Asset Service Providers Act in March.
At the user level, both Bitcoin and stablecoins are gaining traction for everyday financial activity. In January, former UN under-secretary-general Vera Songwe said remittances have become “more important than aid” in Africa, with stablecoins emerging as a faster, lower-cost alternative to traditional transfer methods. Africa Bitcoin Corporation executive chairman Stafford Masie said in March that Bitcoin is used as money in some local economies.
Originally reported by CoinTelegraph.
