PawaPay has been granted a Payment Service Provider licence by the Bank of Mozambique, enabling the pan‑African payments firm to operate a regulated local presence in the market.

The licence, issued through PawaPay’s Mozambican subsidiary Quidexplus Mozambique, authorises the company to onboard merchants directly and provide regulated payment services.

Mozambique hosts more than 12 million active mobile‑money accounts across three operators – M‑Pesa (Vodacom), E‑Mola (Movitel) and mKesh (Tmcel) – which merchants can now reach via PawaPay’s platform.

According to Ilídio Matchebe, Mozambique Country Director at PawaPay, the licence removes a key barrier that previously prevented merchants from scaling operations in the country.

The company plans to begin onboarding merchants within days, with the licence allowing commercial activities to start immediately.

PawaPay is also negotiating with the three mobile‑money operators and international remittance providers to broaden inbound payment flows into Mozambique.

The Mozambique approval adds to PawaPay’s regulated operations in 23 African markets, following a Central Bank of Kenya licence obtained the previous month.

The firm processes roughly 7 million transactions daily for sectors such as ride‑hailing, remittances, retail and NGOs, and has handled over 3.5 billion transactions since its 2020 launch.

PawaPay’s single‑API platform connects businesses to mobile‑money wallets across Africa, supporting collections, settlement, foreign‑exchange and reconciliation.

For Mozambican merchants, the licence means direct onboarding and instant access to all three major mobile‑money networks through PawaPay’s infrastructure.