Nedbank and Crypto.com to Launch Africa-Wide Blockchain Payments with ZAR and USDC
Nedbank and Crypto.com announced a partnership to build an Africa-wide blockchain payments network that will support real-time settlement in South African rand (ZAR) and USD Coin (USDC) for retail and commercial banking customers. The service aims to speed up domestic and cross-border flows by combining a traditional bank’s rails and compliance infrastructure with Crypto.com’s crypto custody and stablecoin rails, offering instant finality compared with legacy batch settlement.
The move could accelerate stablecoin use in mainstream banking across the continent, lowering friction for remittances, merchant payouts, and corporate treasury operations. It also signals growing interest from incumbent banks to integrate tokenized fiat rails while retaining regulatory controls, a combination that may push other regional banks to test blockchain settlement as a competitive service offering.