Grey builds direct African payment rails to bypass the dollar

Grey is building its own payment connections between African markets to make cross-border transfers more reliable and to secure the foreign currency needed to settle them. Co-founder and chief executive Idorenyin Obong said so at a press briefing at Moonshot by TechCabal 2026 on Thursday.

“We have invested in building rails within Africa,” Obong said. Grey lets individuals and businesses send and receive money across markets including Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana.

Reliability and liquidity

Moving money between African countries remains slow and costly. Payment systems are fragmented, each conversion adds a fee, and dollars or other foreign currency are often scarce.

Obong named two core problems. The first is reliability: making sure money arrives when the customer was told it would. The second is liquidity: finding enough of the right currency to complete a transfer. He said Grey has partnered with providers across its markets to source those currencies and settle transfers in real time.

Most transfers between two African currencies have traditionally gone through the US dollar first. Grey says it now converts directly between some African currencies. “The crux of the matter is that there used to be a need for an intermediary, but we have built out these exotic currency pairs so that you don’t have to go that extent,” Obong said.

Part of a wider push

The effort follows two product launches this year. In February, Grey launched Grey Business, a multi-currency account for startups and small businesses. In July, it added local-currency deposits in Ghana and Kenya, letting users fund accounts by bank transfer or mobile money.

Regulators are working on the same problem. In June, the Central Bank of Nigeria was reported to be pursuing closer regional payments integration, including links to the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), which lets African countries settle cross-border payments in their own currencies.

If companies like Grey can settle directly between African currencies, a trader in Lagos paying a supplier in Nairobi would no longer need to buy dollars first. That would remove one of the costliest steps in trade within the continent.