Mobile money or bank transfer for payroll in Africa? A decision guide by country

"Do we pay by bank or by mobile money?" is the first question every new customer asks, and the honest answer is: it depends on the country, the amount and the person. Here is the map.

Mobile-money-first countries

Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Malawi. Salaries, stipends and small supplier payments go to M-Pesa, MTN MoMo, Orange Money, Wave, Airtel Money and the rest. They arrive in minutes, reach people far outside the capital, and the recipient can cash out at any agent. Per-transfer caps apply, so larger amounts are split into several transfers — Storspay does that automatically under one reference and one fee.

Bank-first countries

Nigeria, South Africa, Ethiopia, Zambia, Botswana. Every worker has a bank account (Nigerian fintech wallets like Opay and Kuda have bank account numbers too), transfers land the same business day, and caps are high, so contractor invoices rarely need splitting. In Zambia the bank channel carries very large single payments.

Both

In most East and Southern African corridors both channels are live. The rule of thumb: people by mobile money, companies and large amounts by bank.

How Storspay decides

You enter one amount. Storspay checks which channels are live for that recipient, which is cheapest and fastest for that amount, and whether it fits the cap. It shows you the channel before you confirm and splits above the cap under one reference. If a recipient has both a wallet and a bank on file, Storspay prefers the wallet for amounts under the cap and the bank above it.

Two things to remember

• Ask for the network, not just the number. Tanzania has four mobile-money networks, Ghana three. Storspay saves it to the recipient profile once.
• Cash-out fees are the network's, not ours. Networks charge a small fee when cash is withdrawn at an agent. Storspay adds nothing on the recipient side; the amount on your screen is the amount in the wallet.

Read the corridor guides in this newsroom for the specifics of each country, or try one on the calculator.

Who this is for — and who it is not for

Storspay is for businesses, and a sole trader counts as one. If you are a freelancer or sole proprietor trading in your own name, you open a business account of the sole-trader type. You can be paid by companies abroad, and you can pay other businesses on Storspay — including other sole traders — for work they have done for you.

What Storspay is not is a personal money-transfer service. We do not open personal accounts, and every payment has to be a business transaction: an invoice, a contract, work delivered. Money to family, gifts and personal transfers are not what this is, and we would rather say so now than at verification.