Tanzania Processed TZS 412 Trillion in Digital Payments in 2025. Merchants Nearly Tripled to 2.79 Million. The Country Is Building a Cash-Lite Economy Faster Than Anyone Expected.

DAR ES SALAAM — Tanzania processed 672.24 million transactions worth TZS 412.1 trillion through its core payment infrastructure in 2025, according to the Bank of Tanzania's National Payment Systems Report. The 40.56 percent increase in transaction volume and 16.16 percent increase in value compared to 2024 confirm a payment system whose growth has moved beyond incremental adoption into a phase of structural consolidation. The more important story is not the aggregate growth figures. It is what the 2025 data reveals about the specific architecture Tanzania is building: an interoperable national digital financial system where banks, mobile money operators, fintechs, merchants, government payment gateways, and international remittance providers are increasingly operating on unified rails rather than parallel platforms. That shift from fragmented channels to integrated infrastructure is the difference between a mobile money market and a digital economy, and Tanzania's 2025 numbers suggest the country has crossed that threshold. The merchant number that changes the narrative One statistic in the 2025 report sits above all others in its economic significance. The number of merchants accepting digital payments more than doubled in a single year. Tanzania had 1.33 million merchants accepting digital payments in 2024. By 2025 that number had surged to 2.79 million, growth of 110.08 percent in twelve months. This figure matters because the merchant network is the supply-side condition that determines whether digital payment adoption in the consumer base translates into actual changes in how commerce operates. Mobile money user growth at scale is a demand-side indicator: it measures how many people have the capability to pay digitally. Merchant network growth at scale is a supply-side indicator: it measures how many points in the economy are ready to receive digital payment. When both grow simultaneously at pace, the conditions for genuine economic digitisation are present in a way that either alone cannot produce. The expansion has been largely powered by TANQR and Pay Number solutions that allow businesses to accept payments from customers regardless of which bank or mobile money provider they use. That provider-agnostic acceptance is the critical feature. A merchant accepting payments from M-Pesa users, Airtel Money users, bank card users, and bank transfer users through a single QR code or payment number is a merchant that has removed the friction of payment method fragmentation from the transaction. For a country where cash dominated retail transactions at the start of this decade, 2.79 million merchants with that capability is a structural change in the economy's commercial infrastructure. The businesses represented in those 2.79 million merchant registrations are not abstractions. They are the kiosks in Kariakoo, the pharmacies in Arusha, the transport operators on the Dar es Salaam commuter routes, the restaurants in Mwanza, and the service providers in Dodoma whose participation in the formal digital economy creates the transaction data, the business credit history, the tax trail, and the supply chain visibility that formal economic participation enables. Merchant digitisation is financial inclusion for businesses in the same way that mobile money was financial inclusion for individuals. Mobile money graduates from inclusion tool to primary infrastructure Active mobile money users grew from 63.2 million to 75.8 million during 2025. The agent network expanded from 1.48 million agents to nearly 2 million. Trust account balances rose 35.7 percent to TZS 2.83 trillion. The trust account balance figure carries a specific economic implication that the user count alone does not. TZS 2.83 trillion sitting in mobile money trust accounts represents savings, float, and working capital held in digital form rather than cash. It is the stored value on which the payment system runs and whose scale determines both the liquidity of the digital payment network and the systemic importance of that network to the broader financial system. When mobile money trust account balances reach TZS 2.83 trillion, the mobile money system has graduated from a consumer convenience to a component of Tanzania's monetary system whose stability is a macroeconomic concern rather than simply a telecommunications regulatory matter. The Bank of Tanzania's 2025 report notes that mobile wallets are now integrated more deeply with the banking sector, allowing easier movement of funds between traditional bank accounts and mobile financial services. That integration is the specific development that distinguishes Tanzania's current phase from its earlier mobile money growth phase. When mobile money and banking operate on separate rails with friction between them, consumers make a choice between financial systems. When they operate on integrated rails with smooth interoperability, consumers simply move money through whatever channel is most convenient for the specific transaction, and the system serves them regardless of which provider they use. Tanzania's 2025 numbers reflect the interoperability phase rather than the siloed competition phase. TIPS: Tanzania's financial superhighway is accelerating The Tanzania Instant Payment System's 2025 performance is the single most important infrastructure data point in the report for understanding the direction of Tanzania's digital financial architecture. Transaction volume grew from 452.5 million transactions in 2024 to 643.96 million in 2025, a 42.31 percent increase. Transaction value grew from TZS 29.82 trillion to TZS 54.95 trillion, an 84.28 percent increase in a single year. The value growth outpacing volume growth by a factor of two means the average transaction size processed through TIPS increased materially, indicating that higher-value transactions are migrating onto the instant payment rails alongside the existing high-volume low-value transaction base. Several specific developments drove the acceleration. The Bank of Tanzania integrated TIPS with the Government Electronic Payment Gateway, routing government receipts and disbursements through the instant payment infrastructure in a way that both increases TIPS transaction volumes and creates the payment data connectivity between government fiscal flows and the private sector payment system that a modern digital economy requires. International remittance functionality was added to TIPS, allowing incoming money transfers to flow directly into bank accounts and mobile wallets through the same infrastructure rather than through separate remittance-only channels. Fee reductions and expanded interoperability created the price and convenience conditions that shift user behaviour from traditional payment channels toward instant digital alternatives. The TIPS growth trajectory is the metric that global financial inclusion benchmarks use to assess whether a country's payment system has reached the scale and functionality that characterises a mature digital financial infrastructure. Tanzania's 84.28 percent value growth in a single year on a system already processing hundreds of millions of transactions annually places it in the category of payment systems whose performance is measured against regional and continental leaders rather than developing market comparators. The large-value and foreign currency picture Tanzania's large-value payment infrastructure grew alongside the retail payments acceleration. The Tanzania Interbank Settlement System processed TZS 345.8 trillion in local currency in 2025, up from TZS 314.2 trillion in 2024, a 10.06 percent value increase. Foreign currency transactions through TISS reached USD 41.5 billion, growing 21.32 percent in value from USD 34.2 billion in 2024. The foreign currency transaction growth is relevant to Tanzania's broader economic positioning. USD 41.5 billion in foreign currency interbank settlements reflects the volume of international trade, foreign investment flows, remittances, and cross-border financial activity passing through Tanzania's formal financial system. As Air Tanzania's route expansion including the Moscow launch, the Tanzol Solar Manufacturing Complex's USD 300 million first-year US exports, and the SGR's growing role as a regional logistics corridor generate increasing foreign currency flows through Tanzania's economy, the TISS foreign currency capacity and its 21.32 percent growth rate is the plumbing infrastructure whose adequacy determines whether those commercial flows can be processed efficiently. The decline of paper-based payments is accelerating. Local currency cheques fell 20.45 percent. USD denominated cheques declined 27.61 percent. The report attributes both declines to the adoption of digital payment alternatives. Cheque volumes are a useful indicator of financial system modernisation because they represent the last significant holdout of paper-based commercial finance: businesses that have not yet migrated to digital transfers, direct debits, or real-time payment systems. As Tanzania's cheque volumes fall toward negligible levels, the administrative cost, processing time, and fraud risk that paper-based payment systems impose on the commercial economy diminish correspondingly. The provider ecosystem is broadening Licensed non-bank payment system providers grew from 59 to 72 during 2025. Combined with 42 licensed banks, Tanzania's payment ecosystem now encompasses 114 licensed payment system providers. That breadth of licensed competition is a structural driver of innovation across the merchant payment, digital savings, digital credit, remittance, payment aggregation, and financial technology segments that represent the next layer of financial services being built on top of the payment infrastructure. New developments documented in the report include linked cards that connect bank accounts to payment cards, prepaid N-Cards for public transportation payments, multi-currency POS devices that reduce foreign currency transaction friction for merchants serving international customers, and enhanced cross-border payment capabilities that support Tanzania's growing role as a regional trade and logistics hub. Each of these innovations addresses a specific friction point in the payment system whose removal expands the range of economic activity that digital payments can serve. The expansion from 59 to 72 licensed non-bank providers in a single year represents a 22 percent increase in the number of specialised payment businesses operating in Tanzania's ecosystem. These are the fintechs, payment processors, remittance companies, and financial technology platforms whose competition with each other and with established banks produces the product development, pricing pressure, and service quality improvement that consumers and businesses benefit from without requiring regulatory intervention to mandate it. Cost is the next frontier The Bank of Tanzania's report is candid about the primary constraint on the next phase of digital payment adoption. Lower-income users are highly sensitive to transaction fees and frequently switch between payment methods when costs increase even modestly. That finding has structural implications that the aggregate growth numbers can obscure. Tanzania's digital payment growth in 2025 reflects the broad adoption of mobile money and digital payments across the population that can afford the current fee structure. The next phase of growth, bringing the population segments whose transaction behaviour remains cash-dominant because of fee sensitivity fully onto digital rails, depends less on technology availability and more on the economics of digital transactions for low-value, high-frequency use cases. The Bank of Tanzania's response is the appropriate regulatory intervention. Fee caps for bank-to-wallet transfers remove one of the primary friction points that discourage consumers from using digital payment channels when cash is available as an alternative. The standardised TZS 1,000 interchange fee for international money transfers processed through TIPS creates pricing predictability that encourages remittance providers and their customers to use the formal system rather than informal channels whose lower visibility reduces their contribution to the financial system's data richness and the government's tax base. The affordability challenge is not unique to Tanzania. It is the defining constraint on digital payment systems across Africa's lower-income markets, and the countries that solve it most effectively, through regulatory fee management, competitive pressure, interoperability that reduces per-transaction costs through scale, and digital literacy investment that helps consumers understand and use the most cost-effective payment options, will achieve the deepest financial inclusion and the broadest digital economic participation. What the 2025 report means for Tanzania's economy The numbers in Tanzania's 2025 National Payment Systems Report are financial statistics. Their economic significance is broader. Nearly 76 million active mobile money users. Almost 2 million payment agents. 2.79 million merchants. TZS 412.1 trillion flowing through national payment rails. 114 licensed payment providers. An instant payment system processing TZS 54.95 trillion at 84.28 percent annual value growth. These indicators describe an economy whose commercial infrastructure, government service delivery, tax administration, trade settlement, savings mobilisation, and cross-border financial flows are being rewired from cash-dependent toward digitally-mediated, simultaneously rather than sequentially. The economic benefits compound across sectors. Merchants with digital payment acceptance have transaction records that support credit applications. Workers receiving wages through mobile money have savings account starting points. Government agencies receiving payments through the Government Electronic Payment Gateway have real-time revenue data that improves fiscal management. Import and export businesses settling in foreign currency through TISS have the correspondent banking relationships whose quality determines their access to international trade finance. Tanzania is not building a payments system. It is building the digital financial infrastructure whose depth and interoperability will determine how effectively the manufacturing investment, logistics development, agricultural commercialisation, and human capital formation whose acceleration Vision 2050 requires can be financed, coordinated, and scaled. The payment infrastructure is the nervous system of the economic transformation whose physical expression is visible in the SGR network, the Bagamoyo SEZ, the TISEZA manufacturing parks, and the Julius Nyerere Hydropower Project. The countries that dominate the next era of economic growth will not necessarily be those with the most banks or the most mobile money users. They will be those with the most efficient systems for moving value: between citizens and merchants, between businesses and suppliers, between taxpayers and government, between exporters and international markets. Tanzania's 2025 payment data shows a country building that system at a pace and scale that its peers in the region have not yet matched. FAQ How much did Tanzania process in digital payments in 2025? Tanzania processed 672.24 million transactions worth TZS 412.1 trillion through its core payment infrastructure in 2025, according to the Bank of Tanzania's National Payment Systems Report. This represents a 40.56 percent increase in transaction volume and 16.16 percent increase in value compared to 2024. How many merchants accept digital payments in Tanzania? As of 2025, 2.79 million merchants in Tanzania accept digital payments, up from 1.33 million in 2024, a 110.08 percent increase in a single year. The expansion was primarily driven by TANQR and Pay Number solutions that allow businesses to accept payments from customers regardless of which bank or mobile money provider they use. How many mobile money users does Tanzania have? Active mobile money users in Tanzania grew from 63.2 million to 75.8 million during 2025. The agent network expanded to nearly 2 million agents and mobile money trust account balances rose 35.7 percent to TZS 2.83 trillion. What is the Tanzania Instant Payment System and how fast is it growing? TIPS is Tanzania's real-time payment infrastructure connecting banks, mobile money operators, government payment gateways, and international remittance providers. In 2025, TIPS processed 643.96 million transactions worth TZS 54.95 trillion, growing 84.28 percent in value from TZS 29.82 trillion in 2024. The Bank of Tanzania's integration of TIPS with the Government Electronic Payment Gateway and the addition of international remittance functionality drove the acceleration. What is the biggest challenge to Tanzania's digital payment growth? Cost sensitivity among lower-income users is identified by the Bank of Tanzania as the primary constraint on the next growth phase. Lower-income users frequently switch between payment methods when fees increase even modestly, meaning the next phase of digital payment adoption depends on affordability rather than technology availability. The Bank introduced fee caps for bank-to-wallet transfers and a standardised TZS 1,000 interchange fee for international transfers through TIPS to address this constraint.