Circle's USDC Comes to Kenya
Circle is bringing its USDC stablecoin to Kenya through partnerships with local fintechs like M-Pesa. The move aims to provide faster and cheaper cross-border payments using digital dollars on the blockchain, tapping into the country's massive mobile money market.
Circle's expansion into Kenya is part of a continent-wide strategy, building on existing partnerships with major African fintechs like Onafriq, Flutterwave, and Yellow Card. This network aims to tackle the estimated $5 billion in annual fees for intra-African payments, over 80% of which are currently routed through correspondent banks outside the continent. The move coincides with Kenya's own regulatory evolution. The government is advancing the Virtual Asset Service Providers Bill, 2025, which would empower the Central Bank of Kenya to license stablecoin issuers and the Capital Markets Authority to oversee exchanges. This is a significant shift from the central bank's 2015 warning against digital currencies and follows a 2023 risk assessment on virtual assets. Stablecoins already represent a significant portion of the region's activity, accounting for 43% of Sub-Saharan Africa's crypto transaction volume in 2024. For Kenya specifically, which ranks among the top 30 nations for crypto adoption, users transacted approximately $3.3 billion in stablecoins in the 12 months leading up to June 2024. Many of these new payment rails are being built on the Stellar blockchain, which enables near-instant, low-cost cross-border transactions. MoneyGram has already leveraged this infrastructure, launching a cash-to-crypto on-ramp and off-ramp service in Kenya using USDC on Stellar. While partnering with Circle, M-Pesa's parent companies are also exploring their own blockchain initiatives. M-Pesa Africa, a joint venture between Safaricom and Vodacom, is partnering with the Abu Dhabi-based ADI Foundation to integrate a regulatory-compliant blockchain for cross-border payments and stablecoin transactions across eight African countries. To address institutional concerns about the transparency of public blockchains, Circle has also developed privacy-focused solutions like USDCx. This version, which uses zero-knowledge proofs, allows transaction details to remain confidential while maintaining compliance records for regulators, a feature designed to attract traditional financial players.
