Absa and Thunes Deepen Alliance to Launch World-Class Cross-Border Payments Across Africa

Strategic collaboration expands across African markets to unlock seamless FX, scalable liquidity, and multi-rail cross-border clearing for Absa clients.

Absa Group, one of Africa’s largest diversified financial services providers, has selected Thunes, the Smart Superhighway to move money around the world, as a strategic Multicurrency Clearing (MCC) partner for the Group.

The new collaboration builds on the two companies’ recent launch of Absa Global Pay in South Africa which demonstrated the value of combining Absa’s strong banking franchise and Pan-African reach with Thunes’ global payment connectivity and local-market capabilities. The expanded relationship will now support Absa’s broader cross-border payments strategy across Africa and global markets.

Multicurrency Clearing forms a fundamental pillar of Absa’s strategy to deliver greater speed, transparency, and choice in cross-border payments. By linking Absa’s Pan-African banking footprint directly to Thunes’ Direct Global Network, which spans over 140 countries, 90 currencies, and 220 payment methods, the collaboration enables seamless payouts beyond bank accounts to mobile wallets and card rails with 24/7 liquidity and enterprise-grade compliance.

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Richard Southey, Managing Executive: Payments as a Service, Absa CIB, said: “Deepening our strategic collaboration with Thunes is a natural evolution of our commitment to delivering intuitive, world-class financial services. Following the success of our Global Pay solution launched with Thunes in South Africa, expanding this collaboration allows Absa to leverage Thunes’ expansive and trusted Network across the continent to extend our cross-border solution, giving our clients unprecedented currency choice, speed, and cost efficiency.”

Daniel Parreira, Senior Vice President, Africa at Thunes, said: “Our initial work with Absa demonstrated the tremendous impact of combining deep local banking relationships with interoperable global payment reach. By extending our collaboration and taking on a strategic Multicurrency Clearing role supporting Absa Group, we are providing the digital infrastructure and liquidity needed to connect African businesses and consumers to global payment ecosystems seamlessly.”