Brydge and Monirates want to fix intra-African trade with zero-fee stablecoin wallets

Moving money across African borders has long been a logistical nightmare of fragmented banking rails, punitive exchange rates, and agonising settlement delays. Cryptocurrencies, specifically dollar-pegged stablecoins, promised a frictionless alternative for merchants looking to bypass sluggish legacy systems. Yet the reality on the ground often involves a frustrating maze of hidden costs. From monthly wallet maintenance charges to deposit levies extracted before a single transaction even settles, the toll booths of traditional finance simply changed form and migrated to the blockchain.

Now, trade infrastructure platform Brydge and cross-border payments provider Monirates are attempting to dismantle this revised fee structure. The two companies have struck a strategic partnership to integrate zero-fee stablecoin wallets directly into Brydge’s existing merchant operating system. The move targets the structural friction of intra-African commerce by allowing businesses to circumvent traditional banking delays while simultaneously stripping away the restrictive costs usually associated with crypto payment gateways.

What traders will benefit from the Brydge and Monirates partnership

For businesses trading across the continent, particularly those anchored in high-volume hubs like Lagos, the technical specifications of the deal matter significantly. Traditional correspondent banking often requires funds moving between neighbouring African nations to be routed through London or New York, costing traders days in lost time and steep conversion fees. While stablecoins solve the routing problem, gateway providers have historically squeezed margins.

Merchants using Brydge will now gain access to Monirates’ infrastructure, which supports unlimited wallet creation without setup costs or monthly caps. Crucially, the integration eliminates deposit fees across five major blockchain networks: Polygon, Arbitrum, Base, Tron, and Solana. These specific chains are highly favoured in African tech ecosystems for their speed and low base costs. The partnership also covers gas fees on transactions, leaving only a capped withdrawal cost for the merchant. This creates a highly unusual value proposition in a market where digital infrastructure providers routinely skim margins at multiple touchpoints.

Nathan Agama, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Brydge, views the integration as a fundamental requirement for scaling continental commerce. “Trade cannot scale if moving money remains difficult,” he argues. “Our mission has always been to make African trade work at scale by solving trust, financing, and payments in one platform. Partnering with Monirates allows us to offer businesses a more seamless payment experience as they buy and sell across Africa.” 

The integration will support businesses using Brydge to:

• Send cross-border payments across African markets.
• Settle international transactions with greater speed and transparency.
• Reduce operational friction in supplier and vendor payments.
• Manage trade payments from a single platform alongside sourcing, invoicing, and trade operations.

“Businesses shouldn’t have to think twice about moving money across an African border — it should feel as simple as a local transaction,” said Nnenna Nkata, Chief Executive Officer of Monirates. “That’s the infrastructure gap we built Monirates to close. Partnering with Brydge means the businesses already sourcing, invoicing, and trading on their platform get that same simplicity on the payments side, without needing a separate system to manage it. This is exactly the kind of partnership that moves African trade forward, not by adding another tool but by removing friction from the ones businesses are already using.”

This development lands at a critical juncture for Nigerian and broader African merchants who are aggressively expanding their regional footprints. The African Continental Free Trade Area promises a unified, borderless market, but the actual plumbing of cross-border finance has continually lagged behind those policy ambitions.

By embedding stablecoin rails directly into a platform where businesses are already verifying suppliers and managing logistics, Brydge and Monirates are drastically shortening the distance between making a sale and actually securing the revenue. It shifts the narrative from fragmented software solutions to a genuine operating system for regional trade.

If the technical rollout matches the promises made in the press room, it represents a substantial step toward making borderless African commerce a practical reality rather than just an industry talking point. The ultimate test will be merchant adoption and the platform’s ability to maintain these zero-fee structures at scale across the busy, complex trade corridors of West, East, Central, and Southern Africa.