\u201cAfrica\u2019s cross-border payments market is massive, complex, and underserved,\u201d James Cope, general manager at CrissCross, said in a statement. \u201cCircle Ventures\u2019 investment validates what we\u2019ve been building: infrastructure that can handle that complexity at scale.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lex Campbell and Byron Coetsee founded CrissCross to make cross-border payments more efficient for enterprise businesses operating in African markets. The company was acquired early by Stitch and now sits within Stitch Group, the South Africa-based payments group. CrissCross provides businesses with a single application programming interface (API) to collect money, make payouts, manage funds and exchange currencies across African markets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For collections, CrissCross lets customers pay merchants using familiar local methods such as bank transfers, mobile money and cards. For payouts, businesses can send individual or bulk payments directly to local bank accounts and mobile wallets. Its treasury tools let companies manage funds across multiple currencies, while its foreign exchange infrastructure lets them convert between local currencies, US dollars, and euros.<\/p>\n
CrissCross connects blockchain-based settlement to local fiat payment networks. A business can move value between markets using stablecoins, while the recipient can receive local currency in a bank account. The company says it chooses between stablecoin and fiat rails based on a client\u2019s requirements. It makes money from the payments and currency conversions it processes for clients, and says its pricing varies depending on the markets, payment methods, and services each customer uses.<\/p>\n
\u201cStablecoins help funds move between markets quickly and transparently, and the money is delivered in local currency to the recipient\u2019s bank account or mobile wallet,\u201d the company said in a statement shared with TechCabal. \u201cWe use stablecoin or fiat rails depending on what each client needs for speed, cost and compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n
CrissCross is trying to close the gap between global stablecoin liquidity and local payment infrastructure. In October, CrissCross partnered with Velocity<\/a>, a stablecoin payments and treasury platform, to connect institutional on-chain liquidity with local collections, payouts and FX. The partnership aimed to connect global stablecoin liquidity to local bank accounts and payment rails. <\/p>\n Sub-Saharan Africa received more than $205 billion<\/a> in on-chain crypto value between July 2024 and June 2025, up 52% from the previous year. As crypto activity grows, so does demand for infrastructure that connects digital assets to local payment systems and enables cross-border payments.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re excited to support CrissCross as they bring stablecoin-powered payments infrastructure to scale across African markets \u2014 some of the most complex and underserved corridors in the world,\u201d said Brian Schultz, vice president of corporate development and ventures at Circle.<\/p>\n CrissCross says it currently operates across more than 30 markets spanning West, Central, East, Southern and North Africa, including both CFA franc zones, and supports more than 20 currencies. Its customers include multinational enterprises, financial institutions and platforms that need to move money across complex African payment corridors. The company wants to become the infrastructure that lets global businesses treat Africa as one connected market rather than a collection of separate payment systems.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want global businesses to find it as easy to collect and pay out across African markets as anywhere else they operate,\u201d it said. \u201cA company operating in Nigeria, Senegal or Kenya should be able to do it through the same infrastructure, with predictable settlement and full visibility over its funds. More enterprises are building their growth plans around African markets, and we want CrissCross to be the payments infrastructure they use to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n Stablecoins are becoming the layer underneath payments for African payments companies. In June, Flutterwave announced an investment<\/a> from Ripple as part of its Series E and said it would integrate RLUSD, Ripple Payments, and the XRP Ledger into its payment infrastructure. It has also partnered with Polygon and Tempo<\/a> to build out stablecoin settlement infrastructure.\u00a0<\/p>\n Onafriq, which operates across more than 40 African countries, has taken a similar route. In February, it partnered with Conduit<\/a> to use stablecoins such as USDC to fund accounts and rebalance treasury holdings, and announced another partnership<\/a> in July with digital-asset infrastructure provider Privy to develop regulated stablecoin-powered payment services for financial institutions.<\/p>\n Yellow Card has shifted its focus<\/a> towards businesses, providing stablecoin payment infrastructure, fiat settlement rails, custody, and local stablecoin issuance. Once associated with crypto trading, dollar-backed stablecoins are now being positioned as a way for businesses to settle transactions and move money across borders.<\/p>\n True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We\u2019ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa\u2019s technical frameworks.\u00a0Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Source: <\/p>\n CrissCross, the South Africa-headquartered cross-border payments infrastructure company, has secured an undisclosed investment from Circle Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Circle Internet Group, the company that issues USD Coin… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2173,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/CrissCross-raises-undisclosed-investment-from-Circle-Ventures.jpg\")
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