Payd, a Kenyan-born pan-African fintech startup, has partnered with UK-based payments infrastructure provider, Noah, to enable its users to receive international payments using stablecoins instead of traditional bank rails.
For many African remote workers, getting paid is still the hardest part of the job. Freelancers and contractors working for US and European companies routinely lose up to 10% of their income on platforms like Upwork to lifting fees, FX spreads, and intermediary bank charges. SWIFT transfers can take several business days to clear.
Through the partnership, initially rolling out to over 30,000 Payd users in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Senegal, customers can now generate virtual USD and EUR accounts within the app, complete with US routing numbers and European international bank account numbers (IBANs), allowing them to receive payments like a local in the US or Europe. Foreign employers pay them via an Automated Clearing House (ACH) or Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), like a local transfer. Behind the scenes, Noah converts those funds into stablecoins, such as the USD Coin (USDC) or Tether (USDT), and settles them into customers’ Payd wallets in real-time.
Instead of waiting days and losing value along the way, users receive digital dollars almost instantly. They can hold those balances to hedge against local currency volatility, spend online, or withdraw to mobile money platforms like M-PESA, Wave, or Orange Money within minutes.
This isn’t Noah’s first Africa-focused partnership. In January, the company announced a similar integration with pan-African fintech NALA, signalling a strategy to power African fintechs serving remote workers who earn in foreign currencies without operating directly on the continent.
This partnership-led approach is central to Noah’s model. Rather than acting as a consumer-facing app for African remote workers and freelancers, Noah provides the regulated backend infrastructure: virtual account issuance (USD and EUR), compliant collection rails (ACH and SEPA), stablecoin conversion, settlement, and payout application programming interfaces (APIs). It replaces slow correspondent banking chains with programmable, real-time settlement infrastructure that fintechs, such as Payd, can plug into.
African startups can offer dollar-native accounts and faster global payments without securing their own cross-border banking licences or building complex treasury operations from scratch.
The timing for Noah is also strategic. Freelance and remote work in Africa has grown by over 55% since 2020; more professionals are earning in foreign currencies while living in volatile local economies. Spotting the opportunity, fintechs are turning to stablecoins as a workaround to dollar accessibility challenges and sluggish banking infrastructure that frustrate workers.
