Mambo! 👋 A few months ago, Tanzania’s central bank governor cautioned Tanzanians against stablecoins and crypto related risks. This week, the same institution approved a controlled stablecoin pilot inside its regulatory sandbox.
The story
Tanzania’s Central Bank approved NedaPay to pilot a local stablecoin in its sandbox.
The Bank of Tanzania granted NedaPay permission to test the issuance, transfer, and redemption of nTZS, a tokenised stablecoin pegged one-to-one to the Tanzanian shilling. All settlements happen in TZS. No legal tender status. No yield. No parallel currency. Strictly controlled.
This approval does not contradict the Governor’s previous warnings. Instead, it reflects a cautious regulatory approach to understanding whether a controlled, shilling backed digital token can operate within existing financial oversight frameworks.
If the pilot goes well, Tanzania’s central bank may have just taken its first step toward a policy framework.
Deals
No new deals this week. So instead of who raised, let’s look at who is already building.
HoneyCoin last raised $4.9 million.
The company processes $150 million in monthly volume, serves 350 enterprise clients, and charges corporate customers up to $2,500 per month just for API access.
One of the clearest signals in African fintech right now: infrastructure companies are becoming the business.
Launches
Fincra secured a Payment Service Provider licence (Enhanced Category) from the Central Bank of Ghana.
The company already holds PSP licenses in countries like Canada and Tanzania. For a company that features stablecoin payments, that kind of multi-market licensing is becoming the new competitive advantage.
Regulation
CZ, founder of Binance, said African governments have approached him for advice on crypto regulation.
African regulators are actively researching how to approach stablecoins. Not just to enable businesses. To understand the risks and protect their people first.
Madini
Haraka, a stablecoin savings and credit startup operating across Kenya, Nigeria, and Ghana, shut down in March after two years.
The honest reason: no product market fit.
But underneath that was a deeper reality: mobile money partners were not ready, regulators did not yet speak crypto, and the infrastructure they needed simply did not exist.
The founder has now joined PawaPay as Head of Crypto.
Her conclusion:
“The most interesting work in payments right now isn’t Web3 trying to reach the real economy from the edges. It’s happening inside the companies that already move money at scale on the continent and that are now treating stablecoins as serious infrastructure, not a side bet”
From inside
The pattern is becoming clear. Established fintechs are not building stablecoin infrastructure from scratch. They are plugging into existing rails.
I asked a fintech founder who has not touched stablecoins yet why.
His answer was simple:
“I would need the most compliant and reliable partner so I do not start from scratch.”
That sentence explains where the next phase of growth comes from.
Millions of users already sit inside fintech apps that have not adopted stablecoins yet. The companies that make integration easy for those fintechs may grow faster than the ones trying to acquire users from zero.
On the record
MiniPay, an Opera-backed Stablecoin wallet, crossed 15 million activated wallets across seven African markets. That number doubled in just one year.
15 million Africans chose a dollar backed wallet not because they understand stablecoins, but because they understand what currency depreciation feels like.
The demand was always there. The product just had to make access simple.
Written from inside Africa with love 🇹🇿💚