Global airlines flying into Africa have long faced a back-office headache: getting paid. Fragmented local payment systems, currency complexity and a patchwork of providers across markets make collecting fares harder than it should be.
African payments-infrastructure firm Kora is now part of the fix. The company has joined the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) Financial Gateway (IFG), the airline industry’s payment-orchestration platform, letting airlines and travel agencies accept payments across Africa through a single connection.
Carriers using IFG can now take cards, bank transfers, mobile money and local payment methods via Kora, without building and maintaining separate integrations with providers in each country.
Why airline payments in Africa are hard
Africa is one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation markets, projected to add more than 300 million passengers by 2050. But airlines entering the continent face fragmented payment rails, foreign-exchange complexity, and disconnected settlement systems across markets such as Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Egypt, and South Africa, even as the continent invests in digital airport and aviation systems.
Each of those markets has typically meant a separate payment-provider relationship. Folding Kora into IFG consolidates it into a single connection, with the settlement reliability and local compliance that enterprise operations require. Kora already builds the kind of cross-border African payment rails that global firms struggle to assemble market by market.
One connection, many markets
“Africa is not a market to figure out later. It is a growth opportunity that demands serious infrastructure today,” said Dickson Nsofor, chief executive of Kora. He said global airlines no longer have to choose between expanding into Africa and managing payment complexity.
IATA represents more than 370 airlines, accounting for about 85% of global air traffic. “Kora’s participation strengthens our ability to serve airlines operating in or expanding across African markets,” said Kamil Al-Awadhi, IATA’s regional vice-president for Africa and the Middle East.
Part of a wider payments push
The deal fits into a broader effort to connect Africa’s fragmented payment systems to global commerce, alongside moves such as the AfCFTA’s cross-border digital trade rollout. For Kora, embedding inside an industry platform puts its rails in front of hundreds of carriers at once, rather than selling to each airline one by one.
Kora says airlines can now reach its African payment stack across every market it operates in.
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