Regional Starter Pack
🇰🇪

Kenya

KES (KSh)

M-Pesa carries most everyday payments in Kenya. Chipper ramps Kenyan shillings to USDC on Stellar over M-Pesa, Airtel Money, and bank transfer.

Payment Rails

M-Pesa

Safaricom's mobile money wallet, Kenya's dominant payment rail; collections arrive as an STK push the payer approves with their PIN.

mobile money

Mobile Money

Phone-number wallets run by telecom operators (MTN MoMo, Telecel Cash, AirtelTigo, Airtel Money); payments are approved with a PIN prompt.

mobile money

Bank Transfer

Account-to-account bank transfer; also the generic rail the SEP test anchor uses for end-to-end testing.

bank transfer

About the Local Asset

Unlike USD-intermediated flows that require multiple conversion steps, locally denominated assets on Stellar enable direct on- and off-ramps between KES and the blockchain. This means fewer intermediaries, lower fees, and faster settlement.

Yield-bearing assets like stablebonds take this a step further by backing each token with local government treasury instruments, which generates yield that can be passed on as lower conversion costs — often below 25 basis points.

The result: cheaper, easier, and quicker access to on- and off-chain value for both developers building services and the end users they serve.

Available Anchors

Chipper

Pan-African payments platform whose API collects and pays out over mobile money and bank transfer. An order ramps Ghanaian cedis or Kenyan shillings to USDC on Stellar, or back, in one call, and the sandbox settles on the real Stellar testnet.

View Details
On-Ramp Off-Ramp KYC Required
Payment Rails: MPESA, MOBILE-MONEY, BANK
Tokens: USDC

Commercial

  • failed: Locally denominated asset
  • met: Local payment rails
  • unverified: Competitive rates
  • unverified: Deep liquidity

Developer

  • met: Open self-service access
  • met: Accurate docs
  • met: High-fidelity sandbox
  • met: Agent-buildable
  • met: Fee discoverability

Other Providers in This Region

These providers operate in Kenya but do not yet meet all of our quality criteria for a full integration.

Yellow Card

Under evaluation

Pan-African ramp. USDC on Stellar is live in its B2B API (custodial REST + hosted MCP, not a SEP anchor). Kenya served via M-Pesa; Ghana not yet served.

Website
Tokens: USDC, USDT Rails: MPESA, MOBILE-MONEY

Commercial

  • failed: Locally denominated asset
  • partial: Local payment rails
  • unverified: Competitive rates
  • partial: Deep liquidity

Developer

  • failed: Open self-service access
  • met: Accurate docs
  • failed: High-fidelity sandbox
  • met: Agent-buildable
  • unverified: Fee discoverability

Fonbnk

Under evaluation

African airtime/mobile-money ⇄ crypto ramp. USDC on Stellar is live (on/off-ramp) with self-serve API access and mobile-money rails in Kenya and Ghana. Proprietary REST/widget, not a SEP anchor.

Website
Tokens: USDC Rails: MPESA, MOBILE-MONEY, AIRTIME

Commercial

  • failed: Locally denominated asset
  • met: Local payment rails
  • unverified: Competitive rates
  • unverified: Deep liquidity

Developer

  • met: Open self-service access
  • met: Accurate docs
  • failed: High-fidelity sandbox
  • partial: Agent-buildable
  • met: Fee discoverability

Onafriq

Under evaluation

Pan-African mobile-money aggregator (ex-MFS Africa) with deep KES/GHS rails. No Stellar support today — USDC pilots (Circle/Conduit) are backend settlement on unnamed chains. Access is enterprise/contract-only.

Website
Tokens: USDC Rails: MPESA, MOBILE-MONEY

Commercial

  • failed: Locally denominated asset
  • met: Local payment rails
  • unverified: Competitive rates
  • met: Deep liquidity

Developer

  • failed: Open self-service access
  • partial: Accurate docs
  • failed: High-fidelity sandbox
  • unverified: Agent-buildable
  • unverified: Fee discoverability

Flutterwave

Under evaluation

Major African PSP with excellent self-serve fiat developer DX and strong M-Pesa/Ghana MoMo rails — but no Stellar leg (used Stellar in 2021, pivoted to Polygon in 2025). A fiat-rail partner, not a Stellar ramp.

Website
Tokens: USDC Rails: MPESA, MOBILE-MONEY

Commercial

  • failed: Locally denominated asset
  • met: Local payment rails
  • failed: Competitive rates
  • partial: Deep liquidity

Developer

  • met: Open self-service access
  • met: Accurate docs
  • failed: High-fidelity sandbox
  • met: Agent-buildable
  • unverified: Fee discoverability

We evaluate providers against two lenses — a commercial bar (real local value for end-users) and a developer bar (can you actually build on it):

Commercial

  • Locally denominated asset (stablecoin or stablebond) on Stellar
  • Support for local payment rails connected to Stellar
  • Competitive rates (wholesale <25 bps conversion)
  • Deep liquidity for low slippage (local ↔ global assets)

Developer

  • Open self-service access (credentials + sandbox, no human in the loop)
  • Accurate, well-documented API (docs match the wire)
  • High-fidelity sandbox (a completed test ramp lands real on-chain testnet tokens)
  • Agent-buildable (machine-readable docs/spec, diagnosable failures)
  • Fee/rate discoverability (costs findable via pricing docs or a quote/fee API)

Looking for something else?

A previous version of this starter pack, integrated more anchors and was less selective.

You can view the v1 version of this site at v1.regionalstarterpack.com and the source code on GitHub

← Back to Regions