The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), operated by Afreximbank, has entered a strategic partnership with technology company Seamfix to strengthen compliance, visibility, and governance across real-time cross-border payments in Africa.
According to a statement, the collaboration introduces a new platform, PGATE, designed to give central banks and financial institutions improved oversight of transactions without slowing down the speed of payments.
PGATE, built, operated, and maintained by Seamfix under a vendor-financed model, adds a unified layer of identity-linked compliance to the existing PAPSS infrastructure.
The platform integrates identity verification, payment behavior analytics, and regulatory checks into a single workflow, helping institutions detect fragmentation of transactions, enforce quota limits, and identify suspicious activities in real time.
At the heart of the solution is Seamfix’s Fixiam identity engine, which connects customer identities across different institutions to reduce blind spots and ensure that payments maintain a trusted trail. PGATE offers pre-transaction screening, consent management, audit trails, and rule-based governance features that regulators can review after settlements, giving them a clearer picture of how funds move across borders.
Commenting on the development, the Group Chief Managing Director, Seamfix, Chimezie Emewulu, stated that payments move fast across Africa, but trust must move with them.
“This partnership helps banks and regulators see what they need to see, at the moment they need to see it, without getting in the way of the transaction”, Emewulu said.
The partnership reflects broader efforts to simplify payments under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), making it easier for businesses and individuals to send money across borders without complex currency conversions or delays. Seamfix and PAPSS will begin joint stakeholder sessions ahead of a planned proof-of-concept with selected central banks and commercial banks.
If successful, PGATE is expected to become a critical component of Africa’s evolving digital financial infrastructure.
