Kora, a pan-African payment infrastructure provider, has introduced One Rail, a product that enables merchants to collect, hold, convert, and settle funds in stablecoins alongside traditional fiat currencies. The launch, announced in Dubai, focuses on dollar-backed digital tokens as a way to reduce friction in African cross-border commerce. One Rail initially supports USDT and USDC, with additional stablecoins planned subject to demand and regulatory readiness.
Addressing Cross-Border Payment Friction
African businesses that trade across borders commonly face slow international settlements, costly currency conversion, scarce US dollar liquidity, and fragmented payment systems. Kora founder and CEO Dickson Nsofor stated that sending money to and within Africa costs an average of 8% to 8.8%, compared with a global average of 6.49%. The company also cited stablecoin ownership in Africa at 78%, although it did not explain the measurement methodology.
How One Rail Works
One Rail is designed as an add-on to Kora’s existing payment infrastructure rather than a standalone crypto product. Developers can access stablecoin features through the same application programming interfaces and tools they already use with Kora. Merchants can generate dedicated wallets to receive stablecoin payments, view transactions in real time, and rely on automatic reconciliation through the main dashboard.
Liquidity and Settlement Options
Once funds are received, businesses may hold digital dollar balances or convert them into supported local currencies. Converted funds are settled into local bank accounts through Kora’s established payout network. This flexibility can help merchants who earn revenue in local currency but pay suppliers in dollars, offering a hedge against currency swings without requiring a foreign bank account.
Initial Rollout and Market Position
The first release focuses on merchant collections, payouts, and treasury functions, including wallet creation, payment confirmation, and settlement. Settlement initially relies on manual workflows, which suggests that automated instant conversion and payout is not yet available. Kora has not disclosed pricing, conversion fees, supported African countries and currencies, or early customers.
Competitive Landscape
Kora enters a crowded field as stablecoin adoption grows in Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana, where currency volatility and dollar shortages have driven interest in digital dollars. Several African fintech companies and global payments firms have introduced stablecoin payment and treasury services in recent years. Kora’s potential advantage lies in its existing distribution, allowing businesses already connected to its system to enable stablecoins without adding a new vendor.
Regulatory Considerations
Regulation remains a key uncertainty for stablecoin expansion across African markets. Digital asset rules vary widely, with some central banks creating frameworks for virtual asset service providers and others restricting banks from dealing with crypto businesses. Kora’s statement that new stablecoins will be added based on regulatory readiness reflects this patchwork, meaning expansion will likely depend on market-by-market approvals rather than technology alone.
Kora has not provided a timeline for adding more stablecoins or automating settlement, and it said additional information will be available on its website. For merchants, the decisive test will be cost and speed compared with existing banking channels. If One Rail can move money faster and cheaper while converting back to local currency at competitive rates, it may attract meaningful volume and strengthen Kora’s role in Africa’s digital economy.