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.” – according to the press release.
“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.” – the company 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.”
Richard Southey, Managing Executive: Payments as a Service, Absa CIB
“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.”
Daniel Parreira, Senior Vice President, Africa at Thunes
To celebrate this milestone, executive leaders from both organisations gathered for an official signing ceremony at SIBOS 2026 in Miami.
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Thunes is the Smart Superhighway to move money around the world. Thunes’ proprietary Direct Global Network allows Members to make payments in real-time in over 140 countries and more than 90 currencies.
Thunes’ Network connects directly to over 12 billion mobile wallets, stablecoin wallets and bank accounts worldwide, as well as 15 billion cards via more than 220 different payment methods, such as GCash, M-Pesa, Airtel, MTN, Orange, JazzCash, Easypaisa, AliPay, WeChat Pay and many more.
Thunes’ Direct Global Network differentiates itself through its worldwide reach, in-house SmartX Treasury System and Fortress Compliance Platform, ensuring Members of the Network receive unrivaled speed, control, visibility, protection, and cost efficiencies when making real-time payments, globally. Members of Thunes’ Direct Global Network include gig economy giants like Uber and Deliveroo, super-apps like Grab and WeChat, MTOs, fintechs, PSPs and banks.
Headquartered in Singapore, Thunes has offices in 14 locations, including Barcelona, Beijing, Dubai, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, London, Manila, Nairobi, New York, Paris, Riyadh, San Francisco and Shanghai.
Absa Group Limited (‘Absa Group’) is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and is one of Africa’s largest diversified financial services groups. Absa Group offers an integrated set of products and services across personal and business banking, corporate and investment banking, wealth and investment management and insurance.
Absa Group owns majority stakes in banks in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania (Absa Bank Tanzania and National Bank of Commerce), Uganda and Zambia and has insurance operations in Kenya and South Africa. Absa also has offices in the People’s Republic of China, Namibia, Nigeria and the United States, as well as securities entities in the United Kingdom and the United States, along with technology support colleagues in the Czech Republic.
