Digital PayExpo 2026 returns to Lagos on June 17–18, convening 3,000+ tech leaders to map Africa’s AI-driven payment future.
Africa’s digital payment ecosystem is fast approaching a defining evolutionary milestone. With a consumer base exceeding 1.4 billion people, predominantly comprised of the world’s youngest digital-native demographic, the continent has transformed from a sandbox for financial experiments into a global leader in payment innovation. Yet, structural hurdles such as fragmented cross-border frameworks, localized regulations, and isolated infrastructure continue to limit regional scaling.
To address these challenges, the continent’s major financial decision-makers are heading to Nigeria. As reported by Technext, the 26th annual Digital PayExpo 2026 conference is scheduled to return to Lagos on June 17 and 18 at the Landmark Centre in Victoria Island.
Operating under the strategic theme “Seamless Digital: Fostering Pan-African Market Expansion in the AI Era,” the high-level summit will gather over 3,000 senior executives, fintech founders, central bankers, and telecommunications operators. The core goal of the conference is to establish a blueprint for a fully unified, interoperable financial ecosystem.
The AI Imperative and Regulatory Oversight
A primary point of interest for the 2026 conference is the accelerating integration of artificial intelligence into core financial plumbing. While previous editions prioritized basic mobile wallet distribution and merchant onboarding, the current conversation centers on data optimization.
As detailed in a preview by Businessday NG, stakeholders will explore how machine learning models and predictive analytics can improve transaction efficiency, streamline customer credit scoring, and strengthen fraud detection across volatile regional networks.
Crucially, this technical leap will be examined through a regulatory lens. The speaker lineup reflects a deliberate balance between private sector agility and regulatory supervision. Key speakers include:
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Dr. Rakiya Yusuf, Director of Payment Systems Supervision at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), who remains a primary architect behind the state’s rigorous digital payment reforms.
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Chinwe Iloghalu, CEO of NOVA Bank, and Prof. Kingsley Moghalu, Founder of the Institute of Governance and Economic Transformation (IGET), will deliver headline keynotes framing the macroeconomic policies required to support large-scale financial engineering.
Overcoming the Interoperability Bottleneck
Beyond the implementation of AI, the conference will tackle a critical obstacle holding back the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA): the lack of smooth, real-time cross-border interoperability.
According to regional payment coverage published by Nigerian CommunicationWeek, international delegates like Clara B. Arthur, Managing Director of the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS), and Wacera Maina, Chief Operations Officer at Kenwitch Kenya, will join domestic infrastructure leaders, including Akeem Lawal, CEO of Interswitch Group, and Ngover Ihyembe-Nwankwo, Executive Director at the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS).
This cross-regional group will evaluate technical frameworks to safely link disparate settlement networks. Establishing an interoperable framework is vital to lowering the high cost of regional remittances and allowing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to settle trade obligations instantly without relying on volatile secondary currencies.
Six Pillars for a Connected Continent
Organized by Intermarc Consulting, the 2026 event architecture is anchored around six integrated pillars designed to address every layer of modern finance: AI & Payments, Cross-Border Flows, Open Banking frameworks, Financial Inclusion at the base of the pyramid, Embedded Finance, and Cyber-Resilience.
Ultimately, Digital PayExpo 2026 is moving beyond the standard corporate trade-show format to act as a strategic marketplace. By bringing policymakers and creators into the same room, the summit aims to transform theoretical open-finance ideals into practical, borderless utilities that drive the wider African digital economy forward.
