Access Bank and Visa are lowering the hardware barrier for small merchants, while the Bank of Ghana is testing how mobile wallets, bank accounts and newer forms of digital money could work across African borders.
Together, they address two persistent gaps. The first is payment acceptance: helping more businesses receive digital payments. The second is interoperability: allowing money to move between countries and systems without unnecessary delays, currency conversions or overseas correspondent banks.
Visa Accept turns a smartphone into a payment terminal
Access Bank Ghana and Visa have introduced Visa Accept, a software-based payment service for micro, nano and small merchants.
Eligible Access Bank customers can create a seller profile inside the bank’s mobile app and accept payments without buying or renting a conventional point-of-sale terminal. Customers can pay through a contactless card or mobile wallet, scan a QR code or use a secure payment link.
Access Bank says funds settle into the merchant’s existing account in near real time. Transactions also include support for disputes and refunds under Visa’s payment standards.
There is a timing detail worth clarifying. Access Bank’s website dates the announcement to 13 October, but the release itself says the product was unveiled on 18 September. Local media also reported the launch in late September. The October post should therefore be treated as a renewed availability announcement, not evidence that the product first launched on 13 October.
Why phone-based acceptance matters
Traditional payment terminals come with hardware, onboarding and maintenance requirements that may not make sense for a small trader, mobile service provider or occasional seller.
Visa Accept moves the acceptance layer into a device that many merchants already own. A seller can display a QR code, send a payment link or use a supported phone for contactless acceptance.
The potential benefit goes beyond convenience. Digital payment records make revenue more visible. For a small business that otherwise operates mainly in cash, that history can help a financial institution understand turnover and cash flow when considering credit or other business services.
However, Access Bank has not published adoption figures, transaction volumes or a detailed public fee schedule for the service. It says Visa Accept is available to eligible customers nationwide, but eligibility requirements and supported-device details will influence how widely it is used.
Bank of Ghana tests cross-border interoperability
On the regional side, Bank of Ghana Governor Johnson Pandit Asiama says the central bank is testing cross-border payment interoperability with Nigeria and Rwanda.
The pilots cover central bank digital currencies, stablecoins, conventional bank accounts and mobile wallets in the Ghana–Nigeria and Ghana–Rwanda corridors. The purpose is to test whether these different forms of money can move across borders without relying on correspondent banks outside Africa.
The governor also said the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System, or PAPSS, has been extended to mobile wallets in the Ghana–Nigeria corridor.
PAPSS was created as African financial infrastructure for cross-border transactions and local-currency settlement. Its reach has largely been bank-to-bank. Connecting mobile wallets could make the system more relevant to traders and small businesses that use mobile money more often than traditional bank transfers.
What a working corridor could change
Consider a Ghanaian trader paying a Nigerian supplier. The transaction may currently involve multiple providers, foreign-exchange spreads, correspondent banks and settlement delays. A genuinely interoperable service could allow the trader to initiate the payment through a familiar wallet while the recipient receives value through a Nigerian account or wallet.
For fintech companies, the opportunity is broader. Common payment connections could reduce the need to build a separate technical and regulatory arrangement for every market. The governor said Ghana’s licence-passporting framework with Rwanda could provide a model and that more than ten countries are being engaged.
This could support commerce and remittances, but only if regulators align on customer verification, fraud reporting, dispute resolution, exchange-rate transparency and responsibility when a transaction fails.
These are pilots, not public services
The Bank of Ghana announcement should not be interpreted as confirmation that any Ghanaian can already send mobile money directly to Nigeria or Rwanda through the new corridors.
The central bank has not announced a public launch date, participating wallet providers, consumer fees, transaction limits or service-level commitments. The governor described an objective of moving the pilots into live services, which means testing is still underway.
That distinction matters. African payment announcements often describe the infrastructure’s potential before consumers can use it. Progress should be measured by live availability, transparent pricing, settlement reliability and the number of businesses conducting real transactions.
What to watch next
- Visa Accept’s merchant fees, device requirements and early adoption figures.
- Which Ghanaian, Nigerian and Rwandan wallets participate in the cross-border pilots.
- How foreign-exchange rates and transaction charges are displayed.
- What happens when a payment is delayed, disputed or sent to the wrong recipient.
- Whether licence passporting reduces the cost of fintech expansion across Africa.
Visa Accept and the regional pilots tackle different layers of the same problem. One helps a merchant receive money without another piece of hardware. The other asks whether that money can move across African borders without unnecessary friction. Both ideas are promising. Their impact will be determined by adoption, pricing and reliability rather than the announcement itself.
Sources: Access Bank Ghana’s Visa Accept announcement and the Ghana News Agency report on the Bank of Ghana pilots.
